Speaking of the lusty adventures of children, it's the Hardy Boys! Except wait, FOUR HARDY BOYS!?!? Indeed, there's a new group of unqualified detectives on the case as Ed and Peter attempt to steal Frank and Joe's lives. It's the Hardys versus the Masons, this Friday 5pm eastern, in The Hardy Boys Casefiles ™️ #84: False Alarm.
@Brockway You better pin this before one of the Mason boys puts the moves on your lady
Frank vs Robots? Sign me up
Ooh, target acquired
Under an hour until The Hardy Boys Casefiles™ #84: False Alarm. Here is the preview
Seems like an OSHA violation.
It is a lot for this museum
Joe looks like he only shows up at the lodge for apres-ski with the blood of a missing Olympian on his sleeves and collar
He's dressed like the 1944 Wyoming version of a kid whose dad owns a dealership (mustang ranch?)
SPECTRE sold the building to the museum owners cheap
if that kid went to my high school, everyone would hate him and not know why until they realized he had no scent.
I don't know why that joke required him to go to my high school, I went to bed at 6 a.m. You're lucky you get any punchlines today, you ungrateful parasites, I have half a mind to take off my sheep's wool jacket and thrash you till father nods approvingly.
Just an excessive amount of crowns in that museum
And scrunched together so tightly
Put all the jewelry right by the door? Sure, why not?
Blowing off work early, but I'm still going to miss the beginning of this while I drive home.
I'll take what I can get. We'll just assume that you fell asleep if you stop typing
rekt. But I'm going to be in a meeting for the next hour, so I'm going to miss the early part too
Luckily my manager was understanding when I told them I needed to leave early to dunk on some fictional teenagers.
Time to begin
Let's go. Feels like forever since I could join one of these. Feels good.
We open with Joe wrasslin'
hawt
Very hawt
"A shriek from the coach's whistle" talk about descriptive metaphors
Ed Mason: Muscle Teen
So he looks like one of the Barbarian Bros?
How are his lats though
Hmmm my name might be problematic here now
"Wrestling sure is harder than when my girlfriend exploded"
Maybe this is on me, but the stubby nose bit struck me as strange. Like "hey, this guy is definitely a gentile" strange.
I think it's more that the trope of stupid is like a piggish nose?
Diet tips anger Joe
"Who's this fucking guy think he is, coming into MY middle school and MY wrestling team?"
Joe naturally uses snack based taunts
Yeah, most wrestling matches end with one guys getting his face ground into the mat with like a "enjoy this mat sandwich!" from the other opponent
Hello, my hardy Hardy party.
Ghostwriter: "I really need to emphasize the physique of this 16 year old"
Let's party hearty.
"So pumped up!"
"Is like your muscles are filled with fluid to bursting and it feels like you're cumming"
So big, and so hard
Hey Hardy, how are these wrestling photos like your girlfriend?
Neither one makes it into the yearbook without getting blown up.
That was quick
Code for Irish. No joke.
"Both are usually in my bed."
Joe loses every fight, so pretty believable
Why are the weightbenches in the gym?
People get pinned under the weights and they think they're wrestling
What a great brother Frank is
Every high schooler is jazzed up about the sweet science fair projects
I fucking love Ed.
What a power player.
he steals Hardy's girl THEN humiliates him, but in between gives him advice on how he failed to prepare for either
Attempted to steal his girlfriend
I like how both of these dudes are like hardy boys 1.5
What'd she blow up on the trails?
"Gotta have SOMETHING in the yearbook besides caught a dozen international criminals."
Snacking while dad slowly dies
more like Fentanyl Hardy
Good ol Botrovia
Mo, I don't say this lightly: Good job.
You have used your powers for good.
Wait, so what happened to Fenton?
He's tired from working at the museum
Botrovia got annexed in 2019
I thought he was a g-man
He's a PI, but that doesn't explain why he's in charge of setting up security at the museum
Fenton has a psychic vision
Oh no, Daddy's been drinking too much Daddy Juice
Man, Fenton's showing why he's the real detective.
Hell yeah
Hawk 9-2000 Mega!
This metaphor got away from Fenton
I do recommend the police not responding to wolves baying at the moon.
Joe Hardy: Sandwich ruminating
No.
She dated you.
She is not.
Joe's hearing problems continue
Mmmmmmm, tasty
That's a terrible but accurate description of Aunt Gertrude's cooking.
How clichéd, skinny computer dorks get all the chicks
Cultural snacking
Seems safe with an incredibly buggy system
Yeah, don't proceed to this until you have the false alarms worked out, ya knucklehead
Sure, get those futuristic trash cans with your security system
First put in the valuables, then the security system
Really seems like Fenton got the security system under control
You know, as long as nobody touches anything
Frank is a bad father
Fenton, but yeah. He's only really ever around to put the boys in danger
Fenton realizes that maybe he should install a feature every elevator has
Hawk 9-2000 mega system is someone's username now.
"I haven't seen a haunted security system like this in many years..."
Could it be, The Ghost of Cut in Half by Steel Doors Jim? No, no one has seen more than half of him since that security system incident.
Here comes the beef
That's a very confusing way to say "lardass," but less hurtful at least.
Mr Abrahamson, rotund museum sponsor
"I've seen a movie before. I know what business looks like," said the ghostwriter
"Cigars are just big cigarettes, right? There's no special way to prepare or light one, surely."
Frank and Joe start looking for for dad's porn
Do they know what they're looking for, or are they just snooping in the hopes something will appear?
They're looking for the files about what happened 15 years ago
Natch
They find that basically the exact same thing happened
"Dad, I have a crazy idea, but it just might work. Why don't you stay at the museum and watch the jewels. Maybe hire another guy or pair of brothers to help."
fin
Do you think the Hardys die in each of these scenes, and then the easy explanation save is an implanted memory at the save point?
Hank & Dean S4-style?
Managed to catch the suspect for a different art robbery
So you know they hide in the ceiling every time and you're focusing on the doors? Jesus, you deserve to get fired, Hardy
Maybe, but Frank gives off major danger slut vibes.
It's called the Peabody, you clods.
And he's in Bayport. That's some coincidence
Ah, shitting where he eats, sign of a master thief.
"Where's that?"
"Goddammit, Joe."
JOE HUNGERS
He's not the perp. He's going to be like "boys, please leave an old man be." Then he'll get framed a little more but it will be dismissed and one of the boys will fall into a perilous trap or get knocked out. Then comes the gunpoint.
Joe eats like a wrestler ought to: all the time, not too much red meat. You know, Frank, you fucked up this thing you love.
Not Chet! That slut!
Didn't I say they'd be more popular than the Hardys?! DIDN'T I?!
I'm legit asking. I don't remember.
I love that these two just got here and are systematically stripping the Hardys of everything.
Richard Courtland reaping that sweet nepotism
What will be left? It's like the writer declared war on the characters to prove they had personalities rather than personal details.
The Masons are giving strong Mormon energy. I hope they're just genuinely nice guys that people like because the Hardys are terrible
You did.
Ah, thank you
SEE?! I DID!
Or at least imagined a world where they were the bad guys and the new ones were the actual heroes.
They start tailing ol Dick
Whipping around to get an eyeful of that Dick
It ends predictably
I read that as "man with gray nose hair" at first and have decided that's a great character desciptor.
"You should carry one of these. There's a lot of creeps out there."
It's impossible to know, it is not depicted in any way
What a hilarious prank to pull on these teens, old man
I am so mad that no one will ever believe me that was my first guess what was about to happen.
Creepy
If I were Frank at this point I'd laugh. Would that they could kill me, these faceless men parading through my life. The gun will jam, someone will burst in...I am immortal. I am trapped. They cannot end my suffering. I dare them, in their hubris, to defy God.
"You two are far easier on the eyes."
"I keep a scrapbook on two teenage boys, for my personal well-being you understand."
"Have you met my brother? He runs into explosions in a desperate attempt to die/gain female companionship."
Only one thing to do now: FEED
"Kill the Masons"
Mr. Pizza? Really? Was Pizza Store too exciting a name for you?
I want a mushroom pizza now.
Mushroom and sausage, though. Mushroom and pepperoni is the inferior choice.
Plainly
Dammit, now I want one too.
You'd have to be some kind of Hardy to eat mushroom/pepp
"What's a little coffee between old nemeses?"
Joe's going to be even more shocked at the hotel bill
Bayport: City of Vans
Gun #2 pulled on the boys
Oh good. These kinds of cops always make rational decisions
Oh, yeah. Remove that tension baby
Smooth, Frank
CON Riley?
Officer Riley's first name is Con and no writer bothered to mention that before now?
Fuck you, all previous ghostwriters
Teenagers tearing around town at 80mph is fine if they're self-appointed vigilantes.
Call back to #69 Mayhem in Motion
Nice
Joe, we don't need to hear about your ED again
Somebody has stolen Vanessa's mom's mysterious blue/green van
I think we all know Mormon Joe hacked the DMV to change some details.
Andrea's last name isn't Bender. She just has a lot of DUIs
We wouldn't want there to be any consequences in these books
Oh right, the holograms they were using to make a terrible cartoon
Or just the license plates
That oddly sounds like more work than just stealing the van
This ain't my Chet, excited about vegetables
oh my god
What did you do to Chet, you well-meaning, kind hearted bastards?!
I still can't believe that TV series had beautiful beefcake Chet and tried to gaslight us by saying how awful he was.
Sounds like there was a marketing directive to make Chet less of a glutton.
"Health dip"
Made by Fotie Farms
Weird that the Hardy girls don't think it's weird to pair up and go out with other boys
Disregard women, discuss robots.
This is going to end with the filthiest orgy
Robot parts everywhere
And health dip
Ed Miladys his way into a fight
hahaha, Ed "Cheap Shot" Mason
Not the health dip!
"a rock-hard (YES!) fist (aww...) landed solidly on Joe's jaw (YES!).
Okay, this is plainly a statement.
This is about the inability to change.
This is a writer blowing it all up to watch it rebuild itself.
Well, I never thought this day would come. But I agree with Joe
I'll be damned
Can we pause for a few minutes while I clean up? Fucking pig just flew into my living room.
They showed up to a party their girlfriends were having without them, and then he got punched in the face
Joe didn't even start the mock fight!
Joe's not in traction, why wouldn't they have invited them to this party?
This is an author whose kids just got a new stepdad.
He just mildly injured his ankle
Living in the house MY author's fees paid for!
I don't blame Vanessa for assuming he deserved to be punched.
THE NEXT DAY
Smash cut: shoveling
It's a snowjob, sir.
I joked about the Hardys ending this with the Masons buried in an unmarked grave, but now I think it might actually happen
@LyraV Feel free to riff with us if you have anything. We always love for new people to join in.
Gross, ghostwriter, gross
Or she's dead. But keep moping.
Frank, as a robot, only knows of hyu-man relationships what he saw on TV.
"Hey, look on the bright side, Joe. Maybe she blew up."
Don't act like that would be out of the realm of possibility
Maybe they're clones?
that used to be the exact excuse I used when late for work. Aliens. Or Ghosts.
By which I mean actors that underwent surgery and lessons to imitate people that are still in society.
They get a list of vans from the criminal database and start searching houses
One of them has to work. And if they don't, ask if they want to see your prolapsed anus from the probe.
It goes fantastically
I wonder how this tension will be instantly defused.
Jethro and Homer
missing jewels feels more like a Fenton problem.
I see the lady named her dogs after famous poets
Great use of time
Jethro's Sonnets on the Waterin' Hole always bring tears to my eyes
This Jug I See, This Jug I Quaff is what I want read at my wedding
Sounds like something a high schooler in 1994 would be able to do
Sick burn on Frank
The Hound Dog Slouches Toward Mobile was a poignant classic
Maybe they moved here a month ago and phone books are annual
I feel like we need Josh in here to explain that it takes all of NASA to do what he just described even today.
Never mind, I think I pulled it off on my own.
It's easy when you're a good enough hacker to steal NASA's shit.
We sent robots to Mars in the 70s, frank.
Beauford, My Love, My Eternal really should be studied in schools
That's some leap there, Frank
By that logic, Sharper Image is the top suspect
"Either robots or a small piece of Scotch tape. But that's obviously ridiculous."
The science labs at the high school were heavily armored and fortified
Masons using robots to trigger alarms is objectively funny
You'd think they'd use stones
Ooh, an Illuminati conspiracy to steal the Knights Templar's jewels. Nicolas Cage is about to rip off his Joe mask.
Apparently not that hard to break in, but then something wonderful happens
If you can build a robot that conducts museum heists, you don't need to do museum heists.
The government will hire you.
You could take over the government and hire them!
This is about how effective I'd expect robots in 1994 to be
"EXTERMINATE!"
Airtight evidence, boys
"Or they're planning to teach you the true meaning of Christmas with some whimsical toys."
I can't help picturing the robots from Chopping Mall.
Oh, the robots are made from experimental parts from the company the cat burglar works at? Can't be connected
That seems unlikely.
Chucky started the same way
Fenton has been kidnapped
If only Fenton had coworkers.
Well, no downside
"You boys are not allowed to do anything to help your father. It's not like you recently helped me when I was drugged, cloned, and then that clone was murdered four books ago"
Laura has a scent of the single life and she wants more
Because moxy and go getters never get anywhere in the Hardy Boys universe
"You should also be nicer to Callie, it's not like you did the same for her and she's trying to cuck you now for no reason"
"Then why are you here?"
"Just felt like saying 'hi'"
Could it be the insurance money?
They have neither motive nor means, just mecha.
THE INSURANCE MONEY?!
Initech! With the TPS reports?
That'd be terrific
I wonder who the children could be
We could add Mike Judge to the list of people who've stolen from the Hardys
In a surprise twist, the children are Chet and Callie
Like Spielberg and the Animaniacs
"Could it be the kids who just showed up?"
I've honestly forgotten Laura Hardy every time I learn about her.
So does her family
I assume she has some busy actual job that keeps her from being engaged with their tomfoolery.
One day she will disappear. The remaining Hardy's won't remember her but she'll finally be free.
They'll find her goodbye letter the day they move out. It'll be where she left it. Center of the kitchen table.
How are them Duke boys gonna get outta this one?
