Panic / chronology / Hack Attack

The next book in the sequence is Panic on Gull Island (#107), in which Iola goes missing on Spring Break, and no one in the media or law enforcement can muster any interest in a vanished pretty white girl. The Hardy Boys books have some pretty unbelievable plot twists, but that might be the most unbelievable.

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The Smoke Screen Mystery (#105) is set during Winter Break, while Panic on Gull Island takes place during Spring Break. This gives us a definite and plausible time frame for the intervening book, Attack of the Video Villains: somewhere in the first quarter of the year. Attack of the Video Villains even mentions The Smoke Screen Mystery, strengthening the chronological ties.

This demonstrates a slow tightening of chronological continuity in the digests. The Secret of the Island Treasure (#100) is set during the summer, and The Money Hunt (#101) falls during Bayport High’s fall break. Terminal Shock (#102) is set during Spring Break, and The Million-Dollar Nightmare (#103) takes place during a San Francisco summer. Tricks of the Trade obviously occurs between The Million-Dollar Nightmare and The Smoke Screen Mystery, but that’s not much help, as The Smoke Screen Mystery takes place at the end of the year. There’s a lot of months between those two points, and we don’t even know what part of the summer The Million-Dollar Nightmare is set during.

So for the characters, those eight books (#100 to #107) take place over about 21 months. Logically, Frank and Joe would have gone up a grade during that time, and they might even have graduated. Although if they did, they would have to be in college: you don’t get Spring Break when you’re out of school. Frank and Joe are never in classes, so it’s impossible to tell. For readers, those books were released over about 14 months -- #100 was the first digest released in 1990, while Panic on Gull Island was the second for 1991. As I’ve said in other posts, I really appreciate this sort of chronological care, even if it makes no sense in the long run.

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As I wrote in my post on Attack of the Video Villains (#106), the video game Hack Attack comes up again in Mystery with a Dangerous Beat (#124). I have to imagine the probability that both books were written by the same ghostwriter is high; why else would the same fictional video game appear in both books? I suppose an observant editor could have realized Mystery with a Dangerous Beat’s arcade scene would be a great place to insert a reference to a previous book, and editorial tinkering would explain why Joe is playing the game despite claiming he never wanted to play it again in Attack of the Video Villains.

On the other hand, maybe Joe is just a teenager and prone to hyperbole.

Attack of the Video Villains (#106)

So, you know how Frank and Joe are amazing at everything, right? At detecting — of course, otherwise there wouldn’t be a series — but also all sorts of athletic competitions and at knowing little facts and at shrugging off concussions and other injuries (but mainly concussions) and at somehow knowing where the universe needs them to be at any particular time so they can solve mysteries? Of course you do. Well, in Attack of the Video Villains, Joe adds something new to the things he’s absolutely great at …

(No, not at romancing the ladies. The opposite of that.)

Video games! Particularly one called Hack Attack. After Joe wins a regional competition, Frank and Chet accompany him to the national Hack Attack tournament in New York, where he’s one of 25 contestants. It’s difficult to believe that between detecting, school, athletics, and the firefighting training / firefighting in The Smoke Screen Mystery (#105) that Joe would have been able to get good at any particular video game. I would be willing to overlook the firefighting in the previous mystery, but the author specifically says Joe had hoped the video-game tournament would give them a rest after The Smoke Screen Mystery. But I suppose Joe has to do something in his down time … I mean, it’s not like he’s going to be spending any late nights with Iola.

Evidently, by 1991, when Video Villains came out, someone at Simon & Schuster had heard of this “Nintendo” thing that was going around, and she or he wanted to get in on some of that sweet action by making one of the boys a champion player. By the time Video Villains was published, the Nintendo Entertainment System had been released nationwide in American for about five years, long enough for the entire Hardy Boys target audience to have known the NES and its games intimately.

Hack Attack is played on the Videomundo platform, which is presumably similar to Nintendo; note the similar ending to their names. Videomundo has been sold in America for three years, according to Video Villians; that’s not as many years as the NES had been in the US, but it’s longer than Videomundo’s main competitor, Omega. Omega is probably a reference to Sega, which had been selling games and game systems in America for much longer than Nintendo had been selling the NES and NES games, but the Sega Genesis, Sega’s first success in America after the video game crash of 1983, had been released only in 1989. Like the NES controllers, the Videomundo controllers have A and B buttons. One of the players says Videomundo cartridges are much larger than Omega cartridges; NES cartridges were about twice as tall as a Genesis cartridge, about the same width, but not quite as thick.

This isn’t the only time Hack Attack appears in the Hardy Boys series. In Mystery with a Dangerous Beat (#124), Joe plays Hack Attack in an arcade. I made fun of the taxi-based video game, which I claimed “has never been a thing.” This is not exactly true: in 2000, the game Crazy Taxi was released for the Sega Dreamcast, and the game was successful enough to spawn a few sequels. Hack Attack is a strange game, in some ways; the missions are random, and it doesn’t seem to have a standard opening stage. In other ways, it feels like a classic NES game. The player is a taxi driver who delivers his passenger from one city to another, with outlandish and stereotypical obstacles to overcome (tornadoes in Kansas, for instance). The game frequently sounds goofy but not atypically reality-averse for games at the time. The author sounds like such an adult when he has the kids discuss it, though.

Anyway, Joe is trying to win the contest and the $50,000 grand prize. He’s up against Jason Tanaka, a Japanese-American who is of course good at video games; Nick Phillips, a nervous guy; Bill Longworth, the previous year’s champion; and 21 other mooks we never see or care about. Unfortunately for Joe’s peace of mind, thieves are stealing Videomundo cartridges from tournament participants, although the criminals eventually focus on a copy of Hack Attack that Chet acquired at a game swap. Although Joe was outraged at the hotel’s lack of action to find the thieves in Tricks of the Trade (#104), he lets the hotel’s lack of action in Attack of the Video Villains slide. Maybe he has gained a sense of proportion and realizes video games aren’t as valuable as jewelry!

The thief has trouble figuring out who has the copy of the game he wants to steal, although this advantage doesn’t help the Hardys apprehend him. Joe is particularly frustrated by the thief, a small, wiry guy who regularly outfights and outruns Joe. Evidently Joe’s video gaming skills have caused his physical skills to atrophy. Ha, ha — Joe’s a nerd now!

One interesting thing: the Bayporters have never heard of the Konami Code. Jason shows them how a series of buttons pressed at certain games’ start screens can unlock various upgrades — more lives, better equipment, etc. Jason doesn’t use the exact Konami Code (up up down down left right left right B A), but the first code he uses is the Konami Code with the ups and downs deleted. As Jason says, such codes are used by developers to test the games. No known codes have been discovered for Hack Attack, although Joe says one “might come in handy at the tournament” (35). Jason, suspecting Joe of being a cheater (or willing to be a cheater), gives “him a dirty look.”

Frank and Joe — mostly Joe — spend most of their investigation accusing Omega of the video game thefts. Why would the company want to steal games it could legally buy? Who knows! Omega handles the accusations about as well as you might imagine, with one exec pointing a light gun for the Omega game system at Frank to freak Frank out when he’s found snooping around Omega’s offices. Frank and Joe’s ineffectiveness continues when they stand by helplessly as Chet gets bundled into a car by kidnappers, but with the help of an NYC stoplight, they manage to recover their friend. The two abductors are quickly released on bail, which is possible, but getting released so quickly for kidnapping seems unlikely (and expensive).

Joe finishes in third place in the tournament's first round, after which the competition is reduced to only the top four. Between rounds, the boys find a weird note dropped by Nick Phillips: “SING EVERY NICE SONG WITH EASY NOTES” (94). Obviously this is a mnemonic; since the letters used are the same as the first letters of the cardinal directions, I thought this might be the pattern to get through a maze. But given what the Hardys learned about video-game codes, they should figure out it's a keypad code — down right up down left right up, or something like that — that gives an advantage. Unfortunately, the Hardys are completely oblivious, and Jason gets arrested for the video game thefts.

On the day of the finals, Chet urges Joe to have “a breakfast of champions” (109), which I thought was bourbon and cornflakes but turns out to be pancakes dripping with syrup. Live and learn! With the sound of chiptune jazz in his ears, Joe plays his heart out, but the competition is interrupted by a power outage. The video game thief gropes Joe in the darkness, looking for the elusive Hack Attack cartridge, but he’s disappointed — as is Joe, for that matter, since the guy didn’t even buy him dinner first.

Frank and Joe finally figure out Nick’s mnemonic works only with the cartridge everyone wants; when they input the code, the game plays itself. They realize Nick was going to use it to cheat, but they don’t figure out the rest: that someone behind the scenes at the tournament has to have been involved to put the cartridge in Nick’s machine. When the kids inform the contest director of everything they have learned, he turns on them immediately. He and Chet’s kidnappers threaten the boys and tell them the criminal plot: Nick was going to cheat in return for a lifetime of games, while the contest coordinator would pocket the $50 Gs.

The kids escape to the New York subway system, destroying the rigged cartridge on the way. They lead the thugs into the tunnels, and all of them almost get hit by a train. The boys manage to leap onto the back of the train as it goes by, pulling the ringleader with them, and then dump the guy off at the police station.

In the finals, Joe plays the game of his life, but he loses to the freed Jason. Bill comes in third; Nick is DQed. In return for his phenomenal playing, Joe gets “a ton of Videomundo game cartridges” (147) that we will never, ever see anyone play. Perhaps that has something to do with how Joe feels; he ends the book by saying, “I don’t want to have anything to do with Hack Attack ever again” (148). He gets over this, of course, since he plays again in Mystery with a Dangerous Beat. Or maybe he just forgets! Memory loss seems a likely consequence of the number of blows to the head Joe has taken.

Tricks of the Trade (#104)

Warning: Somewhere in this article is an Arrested Development joke unsuitable for general audiences. If you’ve seen the the show’s pilot, you know which one I’m going to use.

In Tricks of the Trade, Frank and Joe have accompanied Chet to New York to watch a magic exhibition. Frank seems mildly interested in magic, but I can’t tell why Joe has tagged along — unless he’s there to crap on Chet’s enthusiasm, which is plausible and supported by the text. Magic is Chet’s new hobby; although Chet gets new hobbies every week, the narration notes his interest in magic has lasted “two weeks” (2). Ha ha, Dixon. There’s no need for you to dump on Chet too, especially when you couldn’t remember Chet had already had magic as his hobby in The Secret Agent on Flight 101 (#46). That was a total dog of a book, Frankie W., but you don’t get to erase it from history — that’s a bigger trick than you or Tony Wonder could pull off.

Chet is thrilled to attend performances of (and workshops by) Lorenzo the Magnficent, a master magician and a devoted de Medici cosplayer. Chet is entranced by Lorenzo’s act and his beautiful assistant, the Mysterious Larissa. Frank finds Lorenzo’s act impressive, but I’m more impressed that Frank could stand magicians at all. Were I Frank, I would still be traumatized by The Billion-Dollar Ransom (#73), in which a rogue magician (Zandro the Great) kidnapped both Frank and the president of the United States. Frank and Joe did receive a medal inscribed “To the two greatest magicians in the world” from the villain’s main rival at the end of Ransom, but given that Frank’s keen detective mind can’t figure out Larissa is using a “farewell kiss” to pass Lorenzo a key just before Lorenzo’s big escapology trick, I don’t think we can put much stock in that accolade.

I’m sure Joe isn’t watching Lorenzo or Larissa or thinking about that time he saved the president from Zandro the Great; he’s more interested in denigrating Chet’s interest in magic. Joe causes the trio to be late for the train to New York, talks during several performances (prompting a teenager to tell Frank to tell Joe to shut up), gives Frank “a knowing glance” because “they would have to put up with Chet’s excitement for the weekend” (2), and complains about testing out trick handcuffs (“the things you do for your friends,” he says [21]). Frank and Chet think it’s the funniest thing in the world when the trick handcuffs don’t release, which makes Joe even surlier. He can dish it out, but he sure as hell can’t take it, as my father might have crowed / complained.

To be add to the humiliation, Frank can’t pick the lock, so the handcuffs rank among the Hardys’ greatest adversaries.

Lorenzo and Larissa emphasize that their act isn’t slight-of-hand tricks: it’s about illusion. Of course it is; a trick is something a whore does for money … or cocaine. One of their illusions is making the lights of Manhattan, shining outside the hotel window, disappear, but they make the audience close their eyes while they perform the illusion. It’s very reminiscent of radio magic, which I assume was a thing, because radio ventriloquism definitely was a thing. Perhaps the better trick was making a teenager and Chet use ‘50s slang to describe the act: both call it “too much” (40, 118).

At Larissa and Lorenzo’s first performance, a diamond bracelet is stolen; because the hotel doesn’t want to cause a fuss, no one is searched, and the magicians steal away before the search is complete. The hotel management is informed, and they tell the police, but Joe is miffed by what he perceives as a lack of zeal. It’s unclear what Joe would have them do, other than let the Bayporters investigate. The hotel says that’s right out, although they offer to pay for the boys’ supper at the hotel diner. Joe, tripling down on surliness, says he’ll pay for his own meal.

The hotel is not the only organization reluctant to investigate. The hotel has Lorenzo performing, in part, to entertain the board of the American Hotel Association, but even though the victimized woman was a board member, the association won’t question its own members. The board pays for that hands-off attitude when another board member’s emerald earrings are swiped during a later performance.

“Someone’s obviously using the magicians for cover,” Joe realizes (46). Of course they are, Joe. Or maybe the thief is a magician? I mean, stealing jewelry off someone’s body sounds like a sleight-of-hand trick — and I don’t mean an illusion.

Whoever the villain is, he or she tries to scare off Chet and the Hardys with a thrown knife and a weak threat: “You may be the Hardy boys, but we’ve got experience on our side. Go home before it’s too late” (64). Tricks start going badly for Larissa and Lorenzo: a misbalanced blade thrown by Lorenzo nearly hits Larissa, Lorenzo almost saws Joe in half when the trick box is tampered with, and Lorenzo gets the wrong key during his signature escapology trick, forcing Frank and Joe to save him. Someone sets a flash-paper-and-trash fire in Frank, Joe, and Chet’s room, which actually works to the boys’ benefit: they easily extinguish the fire, they get a room upgrade, and no one mentions their clothes smell like smoke. For some reason, the smoke alarm in their room is barely audible in the hallway, and it doesn’t alert the hotel management at all. I hope they mention this in their Yelp review of the hotel!

Suspects: Now you see them ...

• Nat Dietrich, assistant manager of the hotel. Lorenzo reacts violently whenever Dietrich approaches Larissa. Joe also doesn’t like him because Joe thinks Dietrich isn’t doing enough to investigate the robberies.
  
• Clyde Spector, who works security at the hotel. The boys see him chatting with Larissa just after the first robbery, and later they catch him with the diamond bracelet near the hotel’s safety deposit boxes. When they pursue him, he slips away — almost as if he knows the hotel better than they do! Although the Hardys seem disinclined to search for him, the police eventually find and arrest him. He maintains his innocence.
  
• The Mysterious Larissa. Well, she is mysterious, and the boys see her chatting with Spector. She has the dexterity needed to swipe the jewels and access to flash paper. Late in the story, after a third item of jewelry is stolen, the boys find it in her dressing room.
  
• Lorenzo the Magnificent. He acts weirdly around Dietrich, and he has the magical skills to pull off the thefts. Still, the Hardys seem reluctant to accuse him, partially because someone is sabotaging his act. He pulls a weird practical joke at his old mentor’s magic shop, swiping the money from the till, but for some reason Frank won’t ask Lorenzo if he was the thief, even when Lorenzo strongly hints that he was.

While Frank calls to ask the police to do background checks on the suspects, Chet and Joe go to accuse Larissa. In Larissa’s dressing room, Chet and Joe are knocked out by “poisonous” dry ice (128) — all dry ice is poisonous: it’s carbon dioxide, which isn’t healthy to breathe in large quantities for an extended period — and tied up. They escape their chains by using a Houdini trick Chet remembered. (The trick is basically “wiggle until something comes loose.”) Joe realizes it must have been Lorenzo who tied them up, since Lorenzo’s handcuffs were part of the bonds, so when they get loose, the chase is on. With Frank, who wanders in about that time, they pursue and capture Lorenzo and his associate, Dietrich. Frank reveals Lorenzo was a safecracker, and Dietrich blackmailed him into helping with rob the hotel safe — which the Hardys prevented.

This isn’t the only magician-gone-wrong the boys have pursued. Besides Zandro the Great in The Billion Dollar Ransom, the boys caught the Incredible Hexton, an agent of UGLI (Undercover Global League of Informants), in The Secret Agent on Flight 101. Poor Lorenzo doesn’t measure up to Hexton, who kidnapped Fenton, was part of an international criminal ring, and had his own Scottish castle; Lorenzo is just an illusionist who was blackmailed into returning to thievery.

Larissa says the jewelry was planted in her dressing room, and she had given Spector the bracelet he was caught with after another attempt to frame her. Spector, in an attempt to divert suspicion from Larissa, hadn’t turned the bracelet over immediately.

The Hardys bask in the thanks of the hotel and self-congratulations. Joe says, “I guess you’d call his robberies sleight-of-hand thefts!” (152). You mean “illusions” — no, wait, I guess you do mean “thefts.” Joe credits his brother with breaking the case open, with his brilliant decision to ask (demand?) the police run background checks on the major players in the case. The hotel gives the boys jack-all for saving its reputation, showing they know a little bit about theft as well. Better get something in writing next time, boys!