My favorite childhood book: The Three Investigators!

I loved my childhood and wouldn't change any of it for a million dollars.

And one of the things I appreciated about it was the children's books I read growing up. Now that could add up to a lot of books. So I'll confine this post to my favorite "series": The Great Brain series, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and, The Three Investigators. We'll start with the last.

The Three Investigators Mystery Series is a juvenile book series that was created by Robert Arthur, Jr. in the early 1960's. The series consists of 59 individual titles in the U.S. There were 43 titles in the original series published between 1964 and 1987, and the books have been published in a variety of editions and formats over the years but the series is currently out of print in the U.S. These books had enormous worldwide appeal and appear to have been published in more languages and countries than any other U.S. juvenile series. I think I have around 25 books in the series - give or take. All are First Editions and are priced between $25-$50 each. But I'll never sell them.

Robert Arthur's idea was to write a series that was similar in some ways to the Hardy Boys and other popular juvenile fiction of the day but which exhibited a higher quality of writing along with some extremely unusual and perplexing mysteries. The first 15 books consisted of wrap-around cover art, while the detailed internal illustrations initially provided by talented artists Harry Kane and Ed Vebell. This added up to strong factors which helped with the success of this series. As the series progressed, artists changed - which is quite evident in the artwork.

Now let me introduce you to The Three Investigators - Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews -

(Continued)While the mysteries are often incredible, The Three Investigators themselves are, for the most part, simply your everyday, average, resourceful, American boys which makes this series more realistic and appealing than most. Jupiter Jones, First Investigator is head of the firm and known for his remarkable powers of observation and deduction; he is stocky, muscular, and a bit roly-poly. He has a round face which often looks stupid but which hides a sharp intelligence. Jupiter has an excellent mind, and he is rather proud of it. He has many good features, but undue modesty is not one of them. Pete Crenshaw, Second Investigator. Tall and muscular, sturdy and courageous, he excels at athletics. Inclined to nervousness before anything happens, but a tower of strength in any kind of trouble. He is Jupiter's right-hand man when it comes to trailing suspects and other dangerous activities. Pete's father is a special-effects man who works at one of the movie studios in Hollywood. Bob Andrews, Records and Research. Slight of build, small but wiry. Studious in nature, he is something of a scholarly type with an adventurous spirit. He has great nerve and the courage of a lion. Adept at research, he works part-time at the local library which enables him to hunt up information needed for their investigations. Bob's father is a feature writer for a big newspaper in Los Angeles.

The three boys make an excellent team. Having formed the firm of The Three Investigators, they use their spare time to solve any riddles, enigmas and mysteries that come their way. Their motto is "We Investigate Anything". They live in Rocky Beach, California, a small municipality on the shore of the Pacific Ocean a few miles from Hollywood. Pete and Bob live with their parents. Jupiter lives with his uncle, Titus Jones, and aunt, Mathilda Jones, who own and operate The Jones Salvage Yard, a fabulous junkyard where one can find almost anything.

Rocky Beach is, of course, fictitious. Some have surmised it represented Santa Monica or Topanga Canyon. This California locale was of particular appeal to me as I had never been to CA, and the palm trees, sunny weather 24/7 and Hawaiian shirts were a turn-on for a young kid like me.

Headquarters for The Three Investigators is a damaged 30-foot mobile home trailer within the salvage yard which has been cleverly hidden from view by stacks of junk which surround it. It is accessible only by several secret passages and hidden entrances including their favorite, Tunnel Two. Headquarters contains a small laboratory, a dark room, and an office with a desk, typewriter, telephone, tape recorder and reference books. All of their equipment was rebuilt from junk that came into the salvage yard. For traveling long distances, the boys have the use of a gold-plated Rolls Royce, complete with chauffeur. Jupiter won the use of this auto, for thirty days, in a contest. (A grateful client from the seventh book in the series, The Mystery of the Fiery Eye, indefinitely extended the time that they could make use of the Rolls.) For local travel, the boys ride their bicycles or have one of the salvage yard helpers, Hans or Konrad, drive them in one of the trucks.

Adding to this quasi-realism was the real-life movie director, Alfred Hitchcock, who appeared in the original texts of the first thirty titles. His character provided the introductory and closing remarks in each book and, acting as a mentor, he was occasionally called upon by The Three Investigators during the course of solving a mystery. The real Alfred Hitchcock had little to do with the creation of these books. He was simply paid a handsome percentage for the use of his name and character. This provided brand-name recognition and helped boost sales of the books. Indeed, the original name of this series was "The Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Series". All of his dialogue was written by the author of each book. Curiously, Mr. Hitchcock did reserve the right of approval when it came to the cover art on each book - even when his image didn't appear there.

In 1967-1968 with his health in decline, Robert Arthur sought out Dennis Lynds to help continue writing Three Investigators books. Working first with editor Walter Retan on #10 Mystery of the Moaning Cave and later with Eugenia Fanelli, Dennis Lynds wrote under the pseudonym of William Arden. Robert Arthur died on May 2, 1969 and his final Three Investigators book, #11 The Mystery of the Talking Skull, was published later that year. This period also marked the transition of editorship of the series from Walter Retan to Eugenia Fanelli who remained at the helm until her retirement in 1990.

As home computers were becoming more affordable and use of the Internet was quickly rising. Web sites and forums devoted to The Three Investigators started appearing. People researching books and other things from their childhood were - and still are -rediscovering The Three Investigators on-line. Renewed interest and enthusiasm for the series encouraged Robert Arthur's heirs to once again consider the possibility of a movie - Hollywood had always been interested in The Three Investigators, it's just that no one there was genuinely interested in staying true to Robert Arthur's vision and the characterizations of The Three Investigators, "people won't go see a movie like that today". Fortunately, thanks in large part to the overwhelming popularity of The Three Investigators in Germany, Studio Hamburg has purchased the film rights to the series and has agreed to remain faithful to the spirit in which the series was created. Principal location filming for the first movie of a planned trilogy, The Secret of Skeleton Island, wrapped in South Africa in May, 2006, with the movie expected to be in theaters in the Fall of 2007 (not the U.S.). Here's a trailer for the film - in German: http://youtube.com/watch?v=TAS8ePqBjpQ&feature=related. In Germany the series still lives with dozens of new titles and several spin-off series being written by German authors, several of which have been translated into English. Incidentally, the company I work for in CA was offered the distribution rights for the movie - not sure where they are on that. But I did see part of the movie and I was very pleased with it.

In fact, I was so taken with this series that I started my own Three Investigators club with my brother and his school-buddy, Jeff Roberts, who lived across the street. Our basement was "headquarters" and we used to run around town on our bikes, tailing unsuspecting townsfolk, fingerprinting our friends and creating all sorts of mystery where there really wasn't any.

I loved it.

NEXT TIME: The Great Brain