I have been undertaking a Serious Historical Study of the Andy Hardy movies that appear frequently on TCM. There were sixteen made between 1937 and 1958, during which Mickey Rooney’s Andy grew not an inch. Andy would go off to World War II but that part of his life is forgotten in favor of “I know what let’s do! Let’s put on a show!“

The films I’ve seen leave me with even more questions.

1. Did Andy ALWAYS wear a tie?

2. Did Americans once put that much sugar on their corn flakes?

3. Was that car as beautiful as I thought it was? Yes, it was. Andy’s high school graduation gift was a 1940 Plymouth convertible. Possibly it was a bribe offered Judge Stone, like the silver candlestick offered Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons.


4. Mrs. Hardy deserves far more credit. I think she irons Andy’s undershorts.

5. Judge Hardy is rarely in court. He mostly just hangs around and dispenses advice, like Ozzie Nelson did in Ozzie and Harriet. And, given Lewis Stone’s appearance, I would guess he was about 78 when his son Andy was born.


6. It seemed to take Andy about seven years to get through high school. Maybe that’s because in Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever, he falls in love with his drama teacher, Helen Gilbert.


7. In one scene, Andy ties a BOW TIE while talking to Mrs. Hardy without the use of a mirror. That’s an Academy Award right there, as far as I’m concerned.


8. We need soda fountains to make a comeback. My father first met my mother in a soda fountain in 1939.


9. In Love Finds Andy Hardy, Andy offers to court a friend’s girlfriend while he’s away on a weeks-long family vacation so no other guys will Make the Moves on her. They haggle over the fee. They agree on eight bits (a dollar) or $18.36 in today’s money. Good Lord, money went a lot farther then.


10. In Andy Hardy’s Private Secretary, Andy and Polly go parking in what looks like Amazon rainforest in the 1940 Plymouth convertible. Judge Hardy and a good portion of the supporting cast suddenly pull up and hilarity ensues. If any OTHER Andy Hardy type had been caught by his Dad parking with Anne Rutherford (Polly), he would’ve been horsewhipped.

11. Judy Garland appears in only three of the films. Andy is dismissive of her, because she’s just a kid. I find that really difficult to believe. Donna Reed (below) appears one film, too, and that’s good, because that might’ve laid the groundwork for her casting opposite James Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life.


12. The girl Andy dates for his friend (for $18.36 in 2020 money) in Love Finds Andy Hardy is Lana Turner. He finds her spoiled and selfish and, in my mind, no competition for Judy Garland. He breaks off the pseudo-relationship, which is good news because Lana Turner grows up to get her husband murdered and John Garfield sent to The Chair in “The Postman Always Rings Twice.”

13. There are Black people in Andy’s hometown, Carvel, USA (like The Simpsons’ Springfield, it’s everywhere but nowhere in particular). They are all—all of them— Pullman porters, it seems. That part of the Andy Hardy myth is less appealing to me than Andy and Judy and their fountain soda.