Classic TV’s Coolest Character Team-ups

Back in my Marvel Comics collecting days one of my favorite titles was Marvel Team-Up, which ran stories featuring Spider-Man working with (or fighting against) another prominent character in the Marvel Universe. It was always fun to see how two characters I liked would interact, and whether they would fight or join forces against a common enemy.

Television gave us some memorable team-up moments as well. Here are some of my favorites.

Lucy Ricardo and Superman

I don’t know if the 1957 I Love Lucy episode “Lucy and Superman” is the first classic TV crossover. But I can’t think of another example from the 1950s that was this memorable.

George Reeves’ version of Superman was best suited to lighter moments, and here he seems to be having a ball hanging out on a high-rise window ledge with Lucy. One thing I always appreciated about his story was how Lucy and Ricky only refer to Reeves as Superman, to maintain that illusion for younger viewers. 

Batman and The Green Hornet

The most oft-told story about the Batman episodes “A Piece of the Action/Batman’s Satisfaction” (1967) concerned the big fight scene pitting Batman and Robin (Adam West and Burt Ward) against The Green Hornet (Van Williams) and Kato (Bruce Lee).

It might be apocryphal, especially since the doubles for West and Ward did most of the dangerous stuff in those scenes anyway. But legend has it that the script called for Robin to beat Kato, until Bruce Lee refused to lose the fight, and threatened to land a few real shots on his opponent to prove the point. The script was changed so neither hero lost, but Ward supposedly approached that scene like the rest of us approach a root canal. He did have some martial arts training, but if Bruce Lee went rogue the fight would have been over in three seconds.

Doctor Who and Doctor Who (and Doctor Who)

Before anyone in America even knew what it was, Doctor Who was already a sci-fi favorite in England. “The Three Doctors” (1972) was a milestone in the series, created to celebrate its tenth anniversary. The story brought together then-current Doctor Jon Pertwee with his two predecessors, Patrick Troughton and William Hartnell. Illness limited Hartnell’s screen time but he made the most of it: “Oh, so you’re my replacements – a dandy and a clown.” Since then ten more actors have played the role, and the series has become a lot slicker (not to mention more woke, sadly) with its fast-paced stories and special effects. But those early serials are still entertaining, and this was one of the best. 

Scooby-Doo and Josie and the Pussycats

As I wrote in my review of The New Scooby-Doo Movies on Blu-ray, these stories were hit-and-miss at best. “The Haunted Showboat” (1973) features the usual phony ghosts, but the interactions between the Scooby gang and Josie and her friends were fun to watch, especially when Casey Kasem had to carry on conversations with himself while played both Shaggy and Alexander. Docked several points, however, for not featuring a song by the Pussycats.  

Captain Marvel and Isis

This alliance was inevitable, as the two Filmation series featuring these characters aired back-to-back on Saturday mornings as The Shazam-Isis Hour. I just wish they hadn’t waited so long, as I’d have enjoyed watching Isis meet the first Captain Marvel, played by Jackson Bostwick. He had the boyish face and earnest demeanor more suited to such a straight arrow, kid-friendly hero. John Davey replaced Bostwick in the series’ second season. 

The characters met several times during their final seasons – the best of them is “Out of Focus” (1976) where they come to the rescue of a pair of amateur filmmakers played by Andrew Stevens and Nancy Morgan. Morgan married John Ritter just one year after this episode was shot.

The Bionic Woman and Evel Knievel

Jaime Sommers fails to stop East German spies from acquiring a codebook, so she hops on the back of a motorbike and orders the driver to follow the spies behind the Iron Curtain. The best running joke in “Motorcycle Boogie” (1977) is how Jaime refuses to believe the guy she roped into her mission is Evel Knievel: “You’re good, but you’re not that good!”

I just wish this iconic 1970s pairing happened in a more entertaining episode. And I’m surprised that Knievel didn’t object to being portrayed as grouchy and self-centered. But it’s all we’ve got, and it still has its moments. 

Wonder Woman and Roy Rogers

Roy Rogers didn’t play himself in the 1977 Wonder Woman episode “The Bushwhackers,” but that really didn’t matter. In all of his movies and TV shows he was the same genial, good-natured cowboy that he plays here. The plot was unimportant – what made the episode memorable to me occurred before shooting began: Roy was hesitant about appearing with Lynda Carter in her revealing superhero costume, so a new western-style uniform was created for this episode – and of course she looked beautiful in it as well. 

The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew

Both Nancy and the Hardys had been around since the 1930s, first in books and later in various movie and television adaptations. But they never joined forces until ABC launched The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries in 1977. In the season two opener “The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula,” Frank and Joe trace their missing father to Dracula’s castle, which has been rented out for a superstar rock concert (said superstar played by Paul Williams). Nancy, who had been working for the brothers’ dad on a case, joins the search, and sparks fly between her and Frank.

Colt Seavers, Nick Barkley, Yancy Derringer and Dan Troup

In “King of the Cowboys,” a 1984 episode of The Fall Guy, Lee Majors is reunited with his Big Valley costar Peter Breck, and joins forces with Roy Rogers, Jock Mahoney as Yancy Derringer, and John Russell as Marshal Dan Troup (from the underrated western series Lawman). Watching all these heroes saddle up for one more adventure had to be a remarkable nostalgic rush for old school western fans.

Thomas Magnum and Jessica Fletcher

Detectives come in all ages, sexes, shapes and sizes on TV, but it would be hard to imagine two as opposite as Tom Selleck’s Thomas Magnum and Angela Lansbury’s Jessica Fletcher. And yet, the team-up works because both actors come across as two of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet. The two-part story had a few too many twists and red herrings for its own good, but if that’s what was necessary to give this unlikely crime-fighting duo more time for sleuthing, it’s forgivable. 

Sleuthing in the ‘70s with The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew

 

Note: This is Comfort TV's contribution to The Classic TV Detectives Blogathon, hosted by the Classic TV Blog Association. Read more about it here!

What is it about some fictional characters that makes their popularity persist over decades and generations, while others capture our attention for a season, only to be quickly forgotten?

 

Whatever the criteria may be for such cultural endurance, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew are charter members in that elite company. The first Frank and Joe Hardy mystery novel was published in 1927. Its immediate success inspired the publisher to launch a new series with a female lead, and Nancy Drew was introduced in 1930. New adventures in both series were published in 2013.

Neither of their “creators” – Franklin W. Dixon for the Hardys, Carolyn Keene for Nancy – ever existed. They were pseudonyms under which hundreds of books were written by dozens of different authors who labored largely in anonymity. But the stories they told have influenced generations – Nancy in particular has been cited as a formative influence by everyone from Hilary Clinton to Oprah Winfrey to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Hollywood rediscovers the characters about every 20 years; the Hardy Boys first came to television on The Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s. The most recent version debuted on Canadian television in 1995. Guess we’re about due for another one. The first Nancy Drew was Bonita Granville, who played the teen sleuth in a series of films beginning in 1938. The most recent Nancy Drew was Emma Roberts in 2007.

For my generation, the characters were personified by Shaun Cassidy, Parker Stevenson and Pamela Sue Martin on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (1977-1979). It aired Sunday nights at 7pm on ABC, where theoretically it should have found an audience among teens who thought they were too old for The Wonderful World of Disney on NBC, and too young to watch the grumpy old men on CBS’s 60 Minutes. 

That didn’t happen, and even now it’s hard to figure out why. Cassidy and Stevenson could not have been more poster-ready, with Cassidy’s teen idol status amplified by a string of hit singles that not surprisingly found their way into the show. 

And while Martin seemed to always get the weaker stories, she tried to capture some of the intelligence, resourcefulness and New England pluck that made Nancy so appealing in the books. 

No, it wasn’t a great show, but quality has never been a pre-requisite for TV success. Anyone expecting meticulously-plotted mysteries with shock twists and clever reveals left disappointed by whodunits that were more Scooby-Doo than Agatha Christie. By season two even the rudimentary mystery format was largely abandoned, in favor of dropping the characters into exotic (backlot) locales and telling the same kinds of stories you’d see on Barnaby Jones.

Despite the dearth of classic episodes the series did provide a few memorable moments. “The Mystery of the Diamond Triangle” is the best of the Nancy Drew mysteries – Nancy sees a car disappear after an accident, and launches her own investigation after no one believes her story. Rick Nelson, the Shaun Cassidy of an earlier era, meets the Hardy Boys in “The Flickering Torch Mystery.”

“A Haunting We Will Go” is a broadly played Nancy Drew whodunit with a fun guest cast – Bob Crane, Victor Buono, Carl Betz and Dina Merrill. “Sole Survivor” begins with Joe Hardy waking up in a Hong Kong hospital, where he is told he’s been in a coma for a year, and his father and brother are dead. 

It's also a great show for playing "spot the '70s guest star," with appearances from Debra Clinger ("Oh Say Can You Sing"), Joan Prather ("The Mystery of the Ghostwriters' Cruise"), Howard Cosell ("Mystery of the Solid Gold Kicker"), Casey Kasem ("Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom"), Maureen McCormick ("Nancy Drew's Love Match") and Maren Jensen ("Death Surf").

The show actually made one important contribution to Hardy/Drew lore, by allowing the characters to meet for the first time. 

Shockingly, despite sharing the same publisher for decades, Nancy and the Hardys never worked a case together in the books. That changed with the season two opener “The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula.” In this two-part adventure, Frank and Joe trace their missing father to Dracula’s castle, which has been rented out for a superstar rock concert (said superstar played by Paul Williams). Nancy, who had been working for the brothers’ dad on a case, joins the search, and sparks fly between her and Frank.

Several subsequent crossover episodes followed, but they couldn’t bolster the popularity of the Drew stories, which were dropped in the series’ final season. Pamela Sue Martin apparently saw it coming as she left before the end of season two, after appearing in a trench coat (and nothing else) on the cover of Playboy. 

Eighteen year-old Janet Louise Johnson took over the role for the final three stories featuring Nancy Drew. By then the show had already endured more recasts than Petticoat Junction. Susan Buckner replaced Jean Rasey as Nancy’s sidekick George, and Rick Springfield replaced George O’Hanlon, Jr. as the Nancy-smitten Ned Nickerson. Only the ever-stalwart William Schallert, as Nancy’s detective dad Carson Drew, went the distance.

Television eventually did get Nancy Drew right, but by then it was called Veronica Mars.

Flying solo again in their final season, the Hardys found themselves in somewhat darker stories, beginning with the murder of Joe’s fiancée, probably not the kind of tale that appealed to the show's teen girl demographic. The plug was pulled after eight episodes.

We will certainly see more attempts at reviving and updating Frank, Joe and Nancy, but until then The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries arguably remains the definitive treatment, despite its shortcomings. Why it didn’t connect with a wider audience may be the only mystery our trio of young sleuths could not solve.