#62 The Hardy Boys
The Book Cage Episode 78 The Hardy Boys ®️ #62: The Apeman's Secret
For our first dive into standard Hardy Boys fair, I thought we should start hot. And for Halloween, one revolving around costumes and cults. It's a bizarre mystery about a television caveman superhero, and that's not even getting into the verbiage used. This book was released in 1980, but "Jumpin' Jupiter" you'd easily mistake it for 1950. Join me, fellows, this Friday 5pm eastern as we learn about cruise ship cults.
Coming up on the top of the hour, it's The Hardy Boys ®️ #62: The Apeman's Secret. No preview, so enjoy the table of contents
Hot News, A Sticky Shadow, Muscle Men. It tells a whole story 🤌
I can only hear "Another Amulet" being read with an exasperated sigh
The last three chapters are a couple syllables short of being a decent haiku about fucking an ogre.
"Hidden duo" doesnt have enough.
I have no comment on chapter 16
You know what time it is!
Book Cage!
Gellaho's Book Cage!
Nor chapter 20
Holy shit, or 6
Oh, there i have comments >: D
Sticky Shadow is just predicting guilty gear
11 is Another Amulet, which I guess reveals how Brockway kept going after finally losing at WikiWhy
Time to begin
I can't imagine why you chose this book
@Rachel , book read starting!
@Rachel book cage
Scooped
Say cheese for the group photo, Apeman
He secretly loves Carnival Cruise lines!
But you made me happy
Apeman is what you call a caveman superhero
Is the Apeman's Secret that he's actually the Hardies' real father?
Frank is a brilliant detective
It was supposed to be a documentary but the producers took it in a weird direction
a beetling brow.
Yeah, it most certainly can't be a foghorn, Frank. I agree
if that's a real thing it's too archaic even for me
Sufferin' snakes
SINISTER HOOT
This is where I will remind you this came out in 1980
sufferin snakes is this a parody
It will be increasingly difficult to believe
SUFFERIN' SNAKES
did they get the same white guy as the one who wrote luke cage?
SWEET CHRISTMAS
holy shit, there are pictures
YES
rad.
YES
It be the Doom Demon
Fucking sweet
Hell yeah fry those Hardy boys!
It's your boy
Uhhhhh
Hahahaha Chet is metal as fuck this year.
"Moon face"?
Is. Isn't that a slur
Chetry Morton you take off that Robot suit
It means he has a fat head
Hmm.
The Doom Demon. So it's based off a Malibu comic.
Chet is obese. That is his entire description. They never admit he's a hero
They really tripled up on the fat descriptors for that one sentence
There are some subtle clues to Chet's weight
Did Dolomite ghostwrite that or what
oh shit, they used the "w" word
The illustrator did not get the cardboard and foil memo
@Brendan ! Hardy readings!
You know, comic book parties
Chets dad is gonna be so mad when he finds out what Chet did with his taser.
"You want a Dark Souls enemy? Sure, no prob."
"What the hell is Dark Souls?"
I don't know what an Alfresco Disco is and all my guesses feel preposterous.
"Yeah we did forget because we arent NERDS like you, Chet." Frank and Joe said, both meanly and untruthfully.
Peevish fat boy
My life was worse when it didn't take 15 minutes to open a root beer and sit down with Discord.
BOOK CAGE
Fucking Chet
Chet......my guy.......you're too pure to be friends with these two.
Did this ghostwriter have his whole family eaten by a fat kid when he was little or something
There's a level of vitriol in this narration that can't be healthy
The Apeman is what you call a reverse Hulk. He was turned normal, and reverts when angry
Yeah this is where the 30-50 feral hogs guy came from.
He said he used to put a bunch of #^&*! swear marks and the editor changed it to "SWEET CHRISTMAS!"
A disco where you eat outdoors when you're tired of dancing.
Chet knows it's best to laugh along with the Hardys. He's been doing this Make A Wish thing for so long, he's forgotten to ask what is killing them
Okay Reverse Hulk kinda works for a character.
So it's not so much "going ape" as "returning to monke"
We continue our series on pranksters
Monkey hate crime. You crime. You die by monkey.
I would read a comic where a dude turns into a savage ape man and beats the shit out of the wicked.
Take notes, Brendan
"Prankster" was the only word the 50s had to describe terrorists, wasn't it
Terrorists, and cosplayers.
Jumpin' Jupiter, the begonias!
Someone's going to introduce whoopie cushions to Bayport and a bloodbath with ensue
Again, 1980
Frank's being a catty bitch all by himself
I refuse to believe it. These manuscripts were all sentenced to the Phantom Zone back in 54 and published unchanged upon their release
@Brendan okay i love tht ty
Frank and Joe didnt notice the guy standing in the flowerbed and pleasureing himself. Great job, boy detectives.
Say goodbye to Chet
Sorry for disappearing @SKoW - Bigfoot Spirit keeps distracting me from inside my dms, that sexy bitch
THERE'S THE NUT
Hahaha fuckin startled fatboy
GET HIM
The next four chapters are Chet being beaten into pulp
wait what ethnicity is Chet, is this a hate crime
It's a fat crime
Chet's decision to roam around the neighborhood blowing a horn was sure to backfire
"He's insane! Bludgeon him!"
Again, and we just want to stress, fat as fuck
"Have my readers forgotten this character is fat yet? Hrmmm, better remind them"
"Yeah yeah, kid. "You were on your way to a costume party.", tell it to the judge. We give people who make noise the chair in Bayport."
Oh he's fat
Count the number of "fellows" throughout the book
"Chet fatted his fatness across the thin, thin blades of grass that were eclipsed by his rolling mounds of flesh. Flesh that spilled off his body like the very melted ice cream he ate for every meal and every hour, the fat fuck"
"Oh its Fentons kids. Nevermind, police rules mean you and your friends can do whatever."
They showed their Police Benevolent association card and matching white hoods so they got the all clear
Frank decides to become southern when talkin bout them Bigfoot critters
That he might believe in
Mountain Monsters: Hardy Boys Edition would be the only time I'd feel safer with the Hardys
"Don't ask me how I know so much about what a foot should normally look like."
"YEEEEEEEE HAWWWWWWW JOE! WE DONE GOTS US ONE OF THEM MEESTEREES! DOGGONNIT!"
Meth might actually improve the hardys
And even then…
I think back in the 50s they were called "greenies"
A golf cart would explode every episode
The Hardy Cart
We've heard you speak of him, said the children of the 70s
Squeal like a Doom Demon, Chet!
yeah me and greenies are rolling deep rn im not gonna lie
I don't know how you can improve perfection
THE INSURANCE MONEY
IT'S ALWAYS THE INSURANCE MONEY!
Back then you could get meth for cheap, granddad brought back a bunch of Nazi meth from Europe. Sometimes you can even get some where the box is stained with a Wehrmacht troopers blood.
Unfortunately, they had a bitter family quarrel. But the good news is, the troubled family daughter ran away and is now lost to us forever, which is the same thing as the problem being solved
Sam Radley is 87 years old after all
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
"You look like the kind of guy who would join a cult"
"We have a detailed write-up on this cult which I will now share with you, civilians"
Hang on, didn't we just take down the Ku Klux Kranksters in the last book cage? Is this some kind of First Order situation?
Fenton's loose grasp of procedure and ethics makes this seem like a very good idea.
Aunt Gertrude is serving up cake for dinner
I hope the cult is just a bunch of yoga enthusiasts with stupid robes
Like I'm 100% sure its not ethical to have Frank and Joe hunt for teen runaways.
"Devil's food cake"
Apparently Aunt Gertrude is Fenton's sister. I don't think the pervert who illustrated those manga got that memo
Considering he drew their mom almost identically
No, he did
robots?
Twins, they were
robots
1980 New England, I do declare
I mean he needed the other four woman templates for other women, you have to reuse them at some point.
twins are a myth it's always been robots
Oh fie and ruin, not the flaps
Mark my words: her being unable to close the box properly is going to blow the whole case wide open
It was a weird time. You could say pussy on SNL but you couldn't say hell or damn on most dramas unless it was a special occasion.
Beavis & Butthead kinda changed all that. Nobody would have said SUCKS, they'd say STINKS.
The plan to build your props at the soon-to-be crime scene is a bold one
I find the reverse weirder tbh
And even then it would have been one of the weird waterdown spellings like "damme"
So okay, drat. But the I do declare is southern AF (as frying)
Someone doing some Metal Gear Solid shit with their on site procurement.
Be a weird thing to do in a children's book at any rate
Flaps are wide open eh
In the director's cut, Chet throws animal organs at the house to scare people
Aunt Gertrude can't close her flaps.
I miss you, van
"Whippersnapper"
listen who else are kid's going to learn these things from? their loving parents? comprehensive grade school sex education? might as well tell them to ask a unicorn
Man how lame do you have to be to fuckin have to go to a costume party as the Bucky to your brothers Captain America?
sounds more like Max Mercury and Impulse
Mr Linwood talking extremely naturally
"I certainly feel bereavement over unfortunate circumstances"
Joe's costume rules, actually
mcu versions would make a decent couple's costume
It's funnier if you picture him saying it to himself in a Hans Moleman voice, not realizing two teens dressed as golden age retiree superheroes are standing behind him.
"My grief, it gnaws at me, teen boys. It gnaws at me like rats."
It's just a compounded pretension of youth and age, dreams and regret.
"Oh if only thine words weren't carved upon my heart Sir"
"Sure, he's heavyset, but at least he's handsome, unlike that fatty mcfatfat ganoush Chet Lemon"
Buzz Barton
Buzz Barton
How did you boys get in here? You're interrupting my memorization of this southern gothic unproduced Tennessee Williams play!
Baby names having a normal one in Bayport
Yeah Buzz couldnt have had ANYTHING to do with a girl going missing.
You've heard of cargo cults, now behold the cruise cult
No that isnt suspicious at ALL!
Do you mean Buzz Barton, the Wharton Whoremonger?
Have you ever been on a cruise? They all feel like cult cruises
"Well, it's an Abrahamic reference, so they can't be all bad"
How dare he exist
Keep up your fellows count
If you own a cruise liner, you better be pulling in serious numbers to keep your cult in the black
"The cult" is just LRH and his Sea Org
Oh so its less Sue ran away from home and more she moved out.
Well, I guess some things never change. Or stop exploding
Are we sure Bayport isn't getting routinely shelled?
Hahahah how do they even get car loans anymore?!
Fenton isnt even done paying for this one.
It's the Hardy corollary to Chandler's Law. If you're ever unsure where to take a story, have a car explode
never a problem when the cult prevents people from communicating with the outside
this was the good old days when you'd buy a car for a nickle and get a haypenny back
Yep. 1880
All part of growing up. You move out of your parents house and into a cult commune. Sometimes thats on a boat.
So many horseless carriages
Damn bipolar drivers
Boooo
"Same to you!" Joe yelled back.
Give us a real explosion, you hack ghostwriter
Right up there
No computers around, so a real explosion is impossible
"I think I kind of liked it" -Joe
"Speaking of sticking things in exhaust pipes..."
"Joe, get back in the car"
Presently, it was a right turn up
"Will they do juggling?!"
Recorders? Ew
"Gee wilikers I sure hope they have a guy breathing fire!"
Oh god, it's every coffee shop band
Oh, okay. So they're threatening people.
"Pay us tithes or we keep playing"
Back then computers ran on cassette tapes.
Citation needed
When they exploded it smelled like burning steel
Oh no, not our favorite cyborg cop
This plot is the wildest one since blowing up elephants
"culties" is probably what Frank or Joe calls them and nobody can convince them it wont take off.
My god, we're being attacked by the Polyphonic Spree!
The cult runs its own temp service
You adorable culties, helping out around town and such.
Okay but listing their wages makes this cult kind of based
I'm starting to suspect the author thinks any group of more than three teenagers is a cult
Ok this is absolutely the 50s now
Still glad to not know what that means
I cant take a cult seriously if the leader is named Noah because Noah is to me a kind of crunchy college student who has weed and likes Guitar Hero.
Fuckin mimeograph?
Ooh, apocalypse cult. That always turns out well
We're like 50 years away from dot printers
"I say, Joe, these mimeographed broadsheets are jolly amazing!"
Just then, a rainbow swept the sky, as if to taunt him.
"Better get a poultice ready in case any womenfolk are hysterical"
As the Hardies watched, the culties prepared a blood sacrifice to Abraxas in the middle of the square
Why? We obviously suck
Gen X Startup Is Disrupting the Local Handyman & Cleaning Lady Industries
Then they made turkeys out of construction paper
That's gonna be me next week making Halloween decorations.
"Do I look like a cult recruiter?!" Said the obvious cult member, not realizing non members dont notice the patches denoting rank.
Ooh, an old warehouse. Nothing bad ever happens there
"What makes you think I'm in a cult?" says the skinhead
Did Bayport go through some kind of industrial economy crash to have this many empty warehouses just sitting around?
hahahaha
"Gee whiz, an old empty warehouse! No way this could be a trap!"
They shave your head to strip your individuality. You grow out your ass hair to take it back.
"Where do we find your cruise ship?"
"You know where the dock is?"
"Yeah?"
"Fuckin' there."
The empty warehouse is actually bayport's main commodity iirc
Keeps you warm in the cult barracks come winter.
"Weird we waited until we got to the ramshackle warehouse to talk about this"
"It's almost like they know we are coming!"
Man I wonder if the apocalypse cult has any hidden agendas for not accepting new members
Everyone try what Frank is doing
🤔
To be fair I would be mad if I saw I had to deal with the Hardy Boys too
"Do you think its because we are well known in Bayport for investigating crimes and general vigilantism?"
"Or because women keep dying around us?"
It's like being surprised that the Joker doesn't want to deal with Batman
It's a rumble! Exclamation points!
"Or because we cause property damage wherever we go?"
I grew up in real-life Bayport and I can absolutely confirm post-war interstate trucking demolished the local shipping industries.
That and the demise of whaling, but I'm a fan.