In addition to being a Period Piece set in the The '80s—arguably the beginning of the books' heyday—the show is a love letter to its source material, and contains many winks and nods to viewers familiar with it.
Examples:
- The show's "The Hardy Boys" series logo is identical to the logo for The Hardy Boys Casefiles, a popular spinoff book series aimed at older teens, written from the late 80s to the late 90s. The boys' pose on the series image, meanwhile, complete with pointing a flashlight at the viewer, resembles the Hardys' logo from the Undercover Brothers series.
- The mid-season finale "A Figure in Hiding" and season finale "While the Clock Ticked" of the first season share their names with two books from the original series.
- The Hardy Boys live in "Dixon City" at the beginning of the series before moving to Bridgeport. Chet later asks the new girl, Stacy, if she's from Dixon as well, and Stacy replies that she's from Franklin. "Franklin W. Dixon" is the pseudonym under which the Hardy Boys books (of every series) are published.
- The boys' Aunt Gertrude goes by "Aunt Trudy", which is also the name she uses in the two most recent book series, Undercover Brothers and Adventures.
- Frank and Callie have a budding romance throughout the first season, culminating in a Big Damn Kiss in the season finale, and are dating by the second season; the two of them are likewise in a relationship in the original book series and Casefiles spinoff.
- Additionally, in the Casefiles, Callie is far more proactive in helping the Hardy Boys with their cases compared to the earlier books, becoming a competent investigator in her own right and sometimes even the Deuteragonist to the boys, including saving them several times. All of this carries over to her show counterpart, where she is consistently one of the most savvy and helpful members of the True Companions, and gets the most screentime out of the Hardys' friends.
- A prominent location in the series is "Demon's Paw", which likely references the titles of two different books, "Mystery at Devil's Paw" and "The Demon's Den". Season 2 introduces an additional local Bridgeport legend of "the Skull Mountain at Demon's Paw", adding another book title reference: "The Secret of Skull Mountain".
- When Joe and Biff visit the tailor in town, he is saying to another customer, "Let's get rid of the bell bottoms. It's not the '70s anymore." The most famous Hardy Boys TV series was The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, which was from The '70s, and naturally featured quite a bit of bell-bottom jeans and feathered hairstyles.
- The dean of Rosegrave Academy, Paul McFarlane, shares his surname with the longest-running and most beloved ghostwriter of the original book series, Leslie McFarlane.
- The main Victim of the Week that the Hardys and friends try to help in Season 2 is Dennis Gilroy, who likewise takes his surname from Jerry Gilroy, one of the Hardy Boys' main "chums" in the earliest books in the series before he was phased out.
- Stratemeyer Global, a shady conglomerate that serves as the villains of the second season, is named after Edward Stratemeyer and the Stratemeyer Syndicate, who created The Hardy Boysnote .
- The Dragon to the group of rogue Stratemeyer mercenaries, led by Angela Todd, is Mack Malone, which is the name of the villain in "The Mystery of Cabin Island" from the original series.
- The True Companions manage to find Dennis up at the "old mill" in the woods, likely referencing "The Secret of the Old Mill".
- Biff finds her birth mom in River Heights, the town that Nancy Drew is from in the books. This gets even more of a nod in Season 3, where Callie meets and befriends a girl at Rosegrave named Drew, also from River Heights.
- In the Season 2 finale, Frank sees a flashback between George and Gloria in which he crypically tells her to always remember "what happens at Midnight" (referring to the sinister "Project Midnight" experiments that the Hardys learned about prior). "What Happened at Midnight" is another original book title.
- In the Season 3 premiere, Gloria's clue to the location of the final scroll involves a painting of a house on a cliff, referencing the second book in the original series, "The House on the Cliff".
- The pool bar and club where JB meets Joe and Frank in Season 3 is called the Yellow Feather, a reference to the original book title "The Yellow Feather Mystery."
