The Book Cage: Episode 144
The Hardy Boys Casefiles #5: Edge of Destruction
Fenton Hardy has been kidnapped! Terrorists have threatened New York City with deadly biological warfare. Who is brave enough to step up to the challenge? Enter: the Hardy Boys. Fresh off their cloning adventure in The Lazarus Plot, how will they be able to save their father, and to a lesser extent New York. Find out how the mob is involved, this Friday 5pm eastern.
VOICE OF DOOM
If it's not about Ice I don't want it
Also, hell yeah more Hardy Boys
Also blonde Hardy looks especially doofy here. One of the symptoms of the deadly virus is that it pinches your whole face I guess
He looks like an AI generated Matt Damon
Fuck yes sewer capers
he looks like if Matt Damon played that guy who got a million plastic surgeries and looked like a cat
Hardy Boys Noir
Coming up on this week's Book Cage: UNDERGROUND WARRIOR
Oh, they're in Todrick Hall's latest airplane safety video
The children bemoan a week without Sword.
I think it'll be longer than a week
BOOK
HELLO, @Brendan !
Hi, @Tom strips for action! !
GELLAHO BOOK GAME WHEN
Hi, @Areze !
Considering the 3rd Book is incredibly rare, probably never
YOU HAVE NO PROOF uh hi
Anyway, time to begin the process
Hi, @Van Winner, Gellaho Category !
I am welcome to myself
We begin on fire
Oh CAGE
Always sucks when the fire dancer explodes
Joe out here contradicting one of Mitch Hedberg's best lines.
Hi, @Ozzie !
Wealthy and famous people never go to a venue where they're jammed
They take one look at that and go reserve a private balcony
What are we going to do in this emergency situation filled with emergency workers?
Wealthy people wer the only ones who could afford computers in 1991
They're cops. They have no idea how to act in an emergency.
All the cops shoving the elderly patrons out of the way
Hi, @Dyosy !
Running like Michael Scott when Ryan set off the fire alarm
Well, nobody has to do anything as the problem quickly resolves itself on the next page
Thank goodness, I was almost worried for a second
Cops continue to panic
Oh, but the doors are still lock- nevermind
The fire extinguished, the lawsuits begin
The police pouring into the room are attacked by an equal wave of police pouring out of the room
This was written in 1987
Yes, but the author last heard a new band in '72
I'm sure the old people would be scandalized by the quarter century old band
The Hardy boys feel guilt at not defeating mob panic
"Frank I suddenly remembered we're mortal and there are circumstances where we could just die with no chance of escape."
If my parents are any indication, anything pre-internet was "current" in the 80's
Peterson to be seen again in the seminal Bad Rap
100% of their experience proves otherwise
Guardians sounds more like the organisation for the guys who want fewer black cops
However, in fairness to our heroes, so does all of ours.
They get very weird about Fenton's weight
Fenton's distended belly really brings out the laughs
That's very funny, but what's his real name?
Guido was born to get you great seats at a sold-out game
I'm sure Fenton's fine
Fenton is in the bathroom, passed out in a ball in one of the stalls
But will he be dead, though?
"Did he say dead?"
"He's already fat"
Hi, @PhysWiz vs Pantless Ice Man !
He might have mentioned it
Also lol at the kidnapper going high pitched to disguise his voice
In my head he's doing Mickey Mouse
Peterson then has a fruitless conversation with the kidnapper
A kidnapper telling you to do nothing and you get the hostage back is pretty reasonable
Even babysitters charge money
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=666072688213587&id=100044325854853&set=a.261773345310192
"Ok, so what do I have to do if I want to see him fat? I mean, dead?"
"Slits of Fury" is the name of some very aggressive female-led pornography
ahahaha
Or something unspeakably racist
The click and buzz gives away the kidnapper's identity. We're dealing with Cricket Boy
Everyone hide your carpet fibers
"We just defeated a group of evil scientists and our own clones"
"Frank, first of all how dare you speak for me."
To find a fat man, we have to think like a fat man
We need Chet
"Tell mom her husband's fat. Oh, and missing"
"This sounds like a job for ComiCon!"
"Wait, from the inside? Were you boys arrested again?"
All racism is speakable in America as of Monday.
I intend to use several slurs, but only ironically so the groups they target know I'm 'down.'
I'm taking it back, my fellow idiots
"Dad will be lecturing for the next 50 or 60 hours. Don't call him, and certainly don't ask anyone where he is."
"Unrelated: is his life insurance policy up to date?"
Terrorists? In New York? Could you even imagine!
"If anyone sends you a thumb or an ear, keep it on ice. Dad will think it's hilarious."
Everyone knows beating your shadow self as a bonus final boss means you can take on anything.
"also unrelated how much cash can you get together on short notice"
We were such innocents, never guessing in just seven years, a car bomb would strike the WTC.
Wow Joe was a real trendsetter on that one
"I got a package you can inspect"
"Sullivan, that joke was old the first time you told it. Five years ago."
I have evidence from Bad Rap that these can explode
Prophetic
I want to see a kidnapper ballsy enough to send a hostage video on Beta
SEND IT ON FLOPPY COWARD
They got the impossibly high quality foreign VHSs
Must be a blu-ray tape
Off-brand VHS? Must be porn
Gotta be careful. That's how they caught the BTK killer.
This is needlessly elaborate
"Every detail sharp, the color lifelike" on a VHS in 1980 meant you could kind of tell if someone had all their fingers
Vampire pigs!
Haha ok Peterson you can put a person in a coffin without killing them
"Oh no! He's a fat vampire now!"
But also the idea of kidnappers posing their victim in a coffin for the proof video is so fucking funny
"Those bastards! They even paid for a funeral!"
The theatrics continue
Book so old it might be betamax
i prefer stone tablets personally
Sometimes the Hardy Boys plots remind me of the South Park episode with manatees generating Family Guy episodes
This is so dreamlogic 😆
Peterson's ponderously paced police procedure
Spoiler: they get mixed up in all this
Policeman Peterson's ponderously paced police procedure
Peterson is begging them not to contaminate any more crime scenes.
Why not just record a video BEFORE knocking out Fenton 😆
Hi, @GDC !
If only there were some succinct way to phrase this advanced telephone feature
I love that even media that is nominally pro-police can't even pretend that cops are effective.
high pitched makes me think helium which makes this so much funnier
"We didn't have a wide-angle lens"
The term "speakerphone" wasn't coined until 1992
"I would have called you closer to the actual viewing, but uh...did you know you're one digit off from a sex shop? It's really awkward."
Wrong reply lol
Terrorists are releasing a deadly virus in New York! It's Steele all over again!
"What do you do with his poop?"
That's the most pleasant virus I've ever heard of
can i get a sample? sounds like a lovely sleep aid
The virus perfectly mimics an anaesthetic.
That is a very strange use of the word "scientific"
Ok immediate prediction, the virus doesn't actually work and that's why this proof of life video is so weird
Safer, from the sounds of it
"Give us what we want or everyone in New York gets a nap"
I have to say, this isn't very convincing proof that the virus exists.
why do a terrorism when hospitals would pay millions for this stuff.
Yeah these kidnappers could have just sold this as a safe alternative to morphine and made a billion dollars
Well, while that is unfortunate for the rats, you should probably have checked it on humans
Several minutes isn't amazingly quick, is it? Well quick for a virus I guess
kinky
This whole phone call feels like an improv performer failing to encourage audience participation
with a nerd voice the whole time
After all, how many people could possibly be in New York? You could get em all out in an afternoon
A virus replicates by hijacking cells' replication mechanisims, thereby killing the cell; I don't think this can be harmless
"ok guys give us anything. Anything at all... Anything... Any... Ok we'll be motionless and completely silent, awesome let's do it"
Fifty thousand? Dude, more than that die after a Lakers game
I caught a virus in NYC last week (the flu) IRL
This bit continues
I just want a reminder this hostage situation is happening with a dude that sounds like mike tyson in my head
"That's a really tortured way to get us to ask what you want"
Why is any of this happening in this way
Largest building does not equal highest pop density
"We could revolutionize the medical industry, but we'll settle for covering R&D costs"
And, as you know, tax collectors keep their money in a Scrooge NcDuck vault
I love that "tax collectors" is thrown in there
Doesn't everyone pay their taxes with cash?
If you kidnap a guy you want ransom for that guy. If you're holding the city ransom with your deadly virus you don't kidnap a guy, you need to send proof to the governor or whoever that you have the virus and the means to release it
They wasted a perfect opportunity with the gathering of rich people
its almost as if this is rather poorly thought out
YES
ALSO YES
You could have committed an act of bioterrorism and then called every city and threatened a repeat if they didn't pay
This kind of predicts 2020, so I'll grant it.
kill rich people and you'd be hailed a hero
Hardy Boys villains can be defeated by the Hardy Boys, so they have to be pretty dumb
I'll just stroll down to the businesses and ask them to pull out all their Grants and Franklins
No they don't! They're fighting a karate robot and an immortal punch engine!
Love a self-effacing bioterrorist who's willing to haggle.
Wouldn't a virus that kills in minutes be basically useless? It would burn out it's population immediately with little ability to spread.
"after two days we'll tell everyone our evil plans!"
"Tell them now idiot and they'll pay you faster"
I'm just picturing the Cryptkeeper.
"I choose to hold my breath until everyone else is dead!"
Peterson's having a real rollercoaster of a day
"I love this guy. See if he'll call us 'boils and ghouls'!"
I wonder if the writer didn't realise that not all biological or chemical weapons are viruses
Villain: "Ok, now that I've said the plan out loud we've realized it needs some workshopping. Can we do some revisions and get back to you, in, say, a week?"
What, did they have GPS on the car phones?
"don't worry your dad's in magical stasis, he'll be fine until we need him for... Oh yeah I guess we don't need him huh"
You...monitor every car stuck in a traffic jam?
JOE SMASH
Joe approaches problems skull first
BLOOD FOR THE JOE GOD
Shouldn't there be a better answer for that? Like the tracer can tell the difference between mobile and landline?
Frank leaps into action bed
Frank's idea from his dad's hostage video: Sleep
"We'll save our dad!
Tomorrow."
"Hardys, strip for action!"
This is what happens when your heroes aren't even responsible enough to drink coffee.
THE HARDY BOYS TAKE: NEAR-LETHAL AMOUNTS OF METH
Yeah that was me, sorry.
I'm sure the clerks will remember all the blank tapes they've sold
it's mostly used for porn, hardy boys
Win OR Lose
A weird off-brand which was also the clearest and best picture ever
Sounds like a philly eagles game
Cool
Hell, sometimes after practice!
Frank goes all the way to Grand Central to buy his computer parts... for some reason
We have few deaths, many injuries
Cheap foreign videotapes with the best picture quality
cowards
again: porn
WEIRD porn
This place will sell you snuff films if you're a regular
Makes me feel like a mouse in a mouse maze mouse experiment
At least not a cop
Joe failed Biology because he stuffed all the lab mice into one maze to help each other
It's not the fucking lost mines of King Solomon, Frank
OR ARE THEY???
Did this come out before or after Ghostbusters 2?
Hey, I was there Monday. Sorry again about Phase 2, @PhysWiz vs Pantless Ice Man
And I drank all the bourbon before I left!
Frank, it's New York. There's like four layers under the city.
It goes Sewers, Morlock Tunnels, Native American Mass Grave, Nougat
Of course not. Lost Mines of King Solomon is the now defunct tabletop game store next to Grand Central.
Selling the highest quality tapes doesn't make money, apparently
They decide to beat him up
just because
Don't be sarcastic as a 3rd-person impartial narrator, book, it doesn't suit you
"You boys cops? No, you smell like kids of a cop"
Uploads got a little out of order there
You have 2 Hardys who can be sarcastic in their dialogue and thoughts
"Company went under after they found playing the tapes emitted toxic fumes. Lots of dead."
"Something about some broad named Sadako"
"Turns out there's a virus stuck to them"
Sparkling dialogue
Abbott and Costello Confidential
There can only be a couple of fat, bald guys with beards in New York, right?
We're looking for Orson Welles
So either the kidnappers needed these specific tapes for some reason that better be justified, or this lead is total hack shit because the kidnapper just happened to buy the most traceable tape in the city
He knows he's a video freak based on all the other tapes he bought.
Can you imagine a fat bearded guy frequenting an electronics shop? He must be 1 in a million.
What a convenient break
This is going to be a sad chase
Oh hey kidnapper, needed more tapes?
This guy is a great criminal
This innocent man is about to get his ass beat for daring to buy the weird porn.
good
He's not buying porn, he's making porn
it just makes him more into it
Yeah, on reflection, kick his ass.
Yeah, that's a great hiding spot
Pan up to see the huge guy clinging to the store wall like Spider-Man
"How many places can a fat guy hide!?"
All of them in Queens.
Best go running down the tracks
train flies by everyone dies the end
Who couldst have foreseen?
haha called it
Don't worry Joe. It'll swerve first.
"Finally, a worthy opponent," thinks Joe's skull
Nothing to do but state at it like a deer
"Must have been suicide." Thinks the investigator.
Frank watches the train approach
Go back to the homebrew supply store!
Joe lay down under the subway train, calling it.