“Nancy Drew, an attractive girl of eighteen, was driving home along a country road in her new, dark-blue convertible. She had just delivered some legal papers for her father. “It was sweet of Dad to give me this car for my birthday,” she thought. “And it’s fun to help him in his work.”
Her father, Carson Drew, a well-known lawyer in their home town of River Heights, frequently discussed puzzling aspects of cases with his blond, blue-eyed daughter. Smiling, Nancy said to herself, “Dad depends on my intuition.”
An instant later she gasped in horror. From the lawn of a house just ahead of her a little girl about five years of age had darted into the roadway. A van, turning out of the driveway of the house, was barely fifty feet away from her.
As the driver vigorously sounded the horn in warning, the child became confused and ran directly in front of the van. Miraculously, the little girl managed to cross the road safely and pull herself up onto a low wall, which formed one side of a bridge.
But the next second, as the van sped away, the child lost her balance and toppled off the wall out of sight! “Oh my goodness!” Nancy cried out, slamming on her brakes.”
So who’s willing to bet that the driver of the van works for CBS or NBC? I’m personally betting both.
Jokes aside, yes, those were indeed the opening lines of the original Nancy Drew book, The Secret of the Old Clock. And I thought it would be fun to start this post with a joke, while reminding us of what it was that made us fall for this character in the first place, and to remember it when it comes to writing new stories featuring the famed girl detective.
Because unlike some people, I couldn’t bear to modify the text to the point that you barely know what it is anymore. And that is exactly what happened when screenwriting couple Tony Phelan and Joan Rater were given the reigns to make a new Nancy Drew TV series for CBS, in which the crimes they planned to commit against Nancy made that van look like nothing by comparison. In fact, the story was so bad that they had to try again at NBC. And unsurprisingly, that failed as well. Things became pretty uncertain until Ellen DeGeneres and Wendy Williams took matters into their own hands, and Warner Bros. saved us all.
But what exactly went down? What is the whole story of how Nancy Drew, a character with a shaky history of adaptations at best, got saved? I don’t know about you, but it’s time to pick up that magnifying glass and begin an investigation into Nancy Drew’s latest adaptation. On with the case!
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