My first exposure to the Hardy Boys came courtesy of this serial from the Mickey Mouse Club. It was after seeing this that I bought a load of the Hardy Boys kids novels to read. Those two certainly did have some adventuresome lives.<br /><br />No doubt that later incarnations of the boys with Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy in the Seventies and later for Canadian television Paul Popowich and Colin K. Gray in the Nineties were good in their day, but Tommy Kirk and Tim Considine will be the quintessential Hardy Boys for this former devoted Mouskaviewer.<br /><br />The film is based on the very first of the Franklin K. Dixon novels which came out in the Roaring Twenties, The Tower Treasure. The Disney Studio nicely updated the story to fit into the Fifties. The boys get wind of a secret treasure hidden in the dark secluded mansion of miser Applegate. Somebody's taking very seriously the legend that pirate gold is hidden there. And miser Applegate, played by Florenz Ames isn't a guy to ask for help.<br /><br />In the books the Hardy Boys did have a living mother who was not a really memorable character, just your average good mom. Their father is Fenton Hardy, formerly of the NYPD and now a famous private detective. In this serial, he's played by Russ Conway. <br /><br />But the show made Fenton a widower and had Sarah Selby as their constantly interfering Aunt Gertrude. She was in the books as well, but here she was the female of the house. Half the time Kirk and Considine were trying to outfox her to get to their sleuthing business. Selby was memorable I have to say.<br /><br />However what you will remember best is that Treasure Island pirate theme song of the serial about 'gold doubloons and pieces of eight' that is guaranteed to rattle around in your brain for weeks upon hearing it. <br /><br />The Disney channel used to run all these old shows, but around 2000 just surrendered and now run their new shows on the cable network. Hopefully stuff like this will see the light of day again.