We simply MUST have Loopers. Because the future demands it! Kill people in the most complicated, difficult way possible. That’s the rule.

Except that when they really do kill someone in the future, they simply burn down the house with the body inside. Which is what criminals have been doing for centuries.

Aside from the boxing robot, this picture takes place in our time and place. The car, the motel, and the sweatpants are indistinguishable from Rocky, which came out 30 years ago.

Or, if you prefer…

…it’s about a father, not the robot, finding himself.

One of these characters is beating the odds. It's not the one in focus.

It is the Hardy Boys books that first sparked my desire to read. And there were so many of them, that it took until my junior year in college before I finally finished the series and could read something else. The next book I found was something called “Ulysses,” and since it did not feature small time crooks, lost treasure, or hilarious Chet Morton fat jokes, I threw it away (maybe the fat jokes don’t show up until the second act).

Peeping Tom encounters were rare, but Frank and Joe never turned down a case.

It is impossible to describe my love for the Hardy Boys mythology — which makes it an odd choice for a blog post. But I love the whole zany logic of the universe. Frank and Joe Hardy are brothers who are relatively interchangeable, except for their age and their hair color. Frank is always described as 18 and dark haired. Joe is 17 and blond. Always and for all time. Remember, Frank and Joe by now have starred in nearly 200 regular mysteris, 130 Case Files (more grown-up mysteries), a handful of Justice League-type books where they team up with Nancy Drew, and a collection of ghost stories. And that’s not even everything. Because I was a supremely nerdy child, I once went through the books in my collection, calculating the days spent on each case. Because their age never changed, I was certain the entire series could fit into one year. I’m sure the brothers share the same birthday, and Book 1 just happens to begin on the day after.

I stopped calculating somewhere after 8 years.

This supremely creepy image still gets me. But at the same time, I'd love a hidden clock door.

The brothers live in Bayport, a sleepy little coastal town, where they attend high school, date their girlfriends, and constantly reference Chet Morton’s bulging tummy (with affection). They are also always hot on the trail of thieves, smugglers, poachers, spies, outlaws, and assorted unsavory characters. Washington D.C. holds the current record for the city with the most crime in the U.S. I think it’s because they didn’t count Bayport. But in spite of the never-ending criminal proceedings, it’s a lovely town.

The Hardy Boys are amateur supersleuths, following in the footsteps of their professional father. This means they don’t accept payment. Which is fine, since they are always uncovering stolen caches of money, lost jewels, or ancient buried treasure. Presumably they donate this to museums or sick relatives, since their means are modest.

The Hardy Boys were forever using words foreign to me like "Chums" and "Jalopy" and "Eatery"

They live with both their parents and their spinster aunt Gertrude, who is always worried about them. And with good reason. I don’t think there has been a single book in the series where Frank or Joe doesn’t end up knocked out by a criminal who catches them “snooping.” If the NFL really wants to study the effect of concussions, they should take a look at the Hardy Boys. Apparently, concussions have no effect on people whatsoever, and in fact may actually improve your mental aptitude.

This explains Steve Young's budding success as a supersleuth

The Hardy Boys give as good as they get. They are forever punching people in the solar plexus. The solar plexus is an area of the body that I have rarely heard mentioned outside the Hardy Boys books. But it is a magic spot that can render a criminal unconscious with a single blow. They don’t often use guns, but they both have their pilot’s license, play instruments, dominate sporting events, customize cars, perform Houdini-esque escape tricks, and are surprisingly good with animals. To young boys looking for a hero, you can’t get much more perfect than Frank and Joe.

Forgive me a bit of self-promotion, but the Hardy Boys hold a special place in our hearts, having provided the inspiration for Johnny Socko, the teen supersleuth star of The Raiders of Castillo del Mar. Johnny embodies all the same characteristics, right down to the clean-cut, square dialogue of our favorite childhood heroes. The Raiders of Castillo del Mar is a loving tribute to those days spent lost in the library with Franklin W. Dixon and his only literary creation. There are several Hardy Boys references hidden in the book.

My personal collection numbers well over a hundred titles, and I still have them, proudly displayed in my office, though many of them haven’t been read since my youth. They are among my most prized possessions.

Next up.. #58!

Only one thing gets me, and I wonder if the writers knew what they know know about the show’s success, would they do things differently? It has to do with Don Draper’s back story. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, Don is the hard-drinking, hard-smoking tough-as-nails creative director of the ad agency. He’s the star of the show, and he’s far from perfect. Donald Draper is mesmerizing that the show suffers whenever he’s not on camera. It’s precisely because of his flaws that he becomes such an intriguing character. Gifted, brilliant, and capable of self-destruction — if his iron will ever cracks.

Don harbors a secret which was there from the beginning. I’m going to tell it to you, so avoid reading further if you plan to watch the series from scratch, but I’m really only spoiling a few episodes of Season One.

Don Draper is not this man’s real name. He is actually Dick Whitman, a deserter from Korea, who managed to steal the identity of another fatally wounded soldier and create a different life for himself on Madison Avenue. Don/Dick is haunted by his past, and it informs several episodes with different plot lines.

But the series didn’t need it.

I suspect that the show’s creators really didn’t know what they had. The stolen identity angle sounds like an idea for a series pitch meeting, something to provide a bit of intrigue, when what you’re really selling is the mystique and flavor of a lost period of Americana. A show set in an office building probably doesn’t sound too dramatic on paper. Like the characters in their story, the creators needed an idea to suck people in. In this case, TV executives.

Once the show found its tone and hit its stride, the Dick Whitman plot just seems superfluous. Mad Men is at its best when it showcases Don, Roger, Pete, Betty, Peggy, and Joan struggling to keep clients, navigate relationships, generate the next new idea. A thriller mystery thread just diverts attention from the real action.

It’s not that the Dick Whitman back story is poorly executed. It just doesn’t fit as well as everything else. And I think this pertains to all back story. In the end, only what’s happening to the characters right now really matters. The rest belongs on the cutting room floor.

This man stole your identity and became the world's greatest advertising mind. Don't you wish you had LifeLock?

What I’d really like to do is talk about is the art of crafting a good story. As a writer, it’s a subject I find endlessly fascinating. So many tunnels to explore. So many hidden passages. So many dead ends. My life is one big exhibition hall for this topic. I come into contact with stories every day, either things that I watch or read, or things that I’m writing myself. It seems there’s a lesson to be learned in all of them.

Take Star Wars. It has a reputation as an action movie, but it actually takes its time to develop. In the first hour, there are only a handful of sequences that can be considered action. An opening space battle, good. Ben cuts off a guy’s arm. Han shoots Greedo, then later blasts some troops as they take off from Mos Eisley.

When it comes to conflict, mortal danger is one of the most extreme situations a character can find him or herself in. So far, Luke and Han haven’t really seen a lot of action. But once on the Death Star, consider this escalating series of events, each of which puts our heroes lives on the line:

• Han, Luke, and Chewie open fire in the cell block trying to rescue Leia.
• Troops show up and pin them in the corridor.
• Leia blasts an escape route into the trash compactor, where Han nearly kills them all with a ricochet laser bolt.
• Luke then gets sucked under water by a snake creature.
• Then the walls start closing in.
• C-3PO rescues them, but troops show up immediately and they are forced to separate to avoid getting killed.
• Luke and Leia get trapped on a tiny platform above an endless pit.
• Troops try to blast them from across the pit.
• Luke and Leia make a daring swing across the pit.
• Han and Chewie run into an entire garrison of troops and run for their lives.
• Ben ends up in a lightsaber duel to the death with Vader.
• The rest of the heroes shoot their way back onto the Millenium Falcon.
• TIE Fighters pursue them and Han and Luke have to shoot them down in order to escape.

That’s a lot of potential death scenes. Ben didn’t even make it out alive. And they come at you one right after another. Boom! Boom! Boom! What started as a search for lost droids on a sleepy desert planet has suddenly turned into Die Hard on a Death Star, and I think it’s a big reason why fans fell in love with the movie. It put the characters in a series of escalating conflicts, in which one wrong move could end them.

What strikes me is that none of these action scenes is especially imaginative. Big pit, deadly snake, troopers with guns. The setting makes them unique, but there’s nothing we haven’t seen before (the magnetic shield that causes the ricochet laser blast comes closest). What makes them fun is how one follows another, without letting up. Once this action sequence kicks into high gear, you don’t get a breather until the heroes are on their way to Yavin, to prepare for the final battle.

I think the lesson here is that you don’t have to always invent new ways to endanger your heroes. You just have to keep your foot on the gas.

Stormtroopers are apparently equipped like Batman