In the first episode, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew meet in a European hotel room, and are at first at odds — Frank and Joe are tracking their missing father, who was working with Nancy at the time. The series then featured episodes which see the two teams work successfully together. Nancy and Frank are also constantly at odds with each other; they often bicker in many of the earlier crossover episodes. Although the relationship is mostly professional and platonic, Nancy Drew and Frank Hardy kiss in one episode; however, this is the furthest the romance goes. While the first season had an even split of Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys episodes, in the first 13 second-season episodes, The Hardy Boys were the leads in six episodes, while Nancy was the lead just three. Four other episodes featured all three characters, but The Hardy Boys were given more screen time in these 'crossover' episodes. Accordingly, midway through the season, Pamela Sue Martin departed the series over concerns regarding her reduced role. She was recast with Janet Louise Johnson. For the nine remaining episodes produced for season 2, The Hardy Boys were featured in all of them. Four episodes also featured Johnson's Nancy Drew as a supporting character. Following the ending of the second season, the Nancy Drew character was dropped, and the series was re-titled "The Hardy Boys". Joe Hardy was engaged in the first episode, but his fiancée was killed in a hit-and-run, investigated by the FBI. After solving the case, Frank and Joe become government agents at the Justice Department. Their boss, Harry Hammond, became a regular cast member. Midway through the season, the series was canceled by ABC. "The Hardy Boys" and "Nancy Drew" were both successful book publishing franchises owned by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a publishing group which owned many successful children's book lines. At the time the television series started production (Fall 1976), there were 55 books in "The Hardy Boys" series and 53 books in the "Nancy Drew" series. Producers Joyce Brotman and Arlene Sidaris wanted to adapt both book series to television, and proposed a series to Universal Television in 1976. Universal was excited about the series, but first had to gain approval from the Stratemeyer Syndicate, headed by Harriet Stratemeyer Adams. At first, the 83-year-old Adams was skeptical. Adams had inherited the Syndicate from her father, Edward Stratemeyer, after his death in 1930. In the late 1930s, Warner Bros. approached Adams about buying the movie rights to the Drew series.