The Three Investigators/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The series is hugely popular in Germany, where several authors have added many books not found in the original American series. (In German, they are called Die Drei ???, which is pronounced Die Drei Fragezeichen, which in turn means The Three Question Marks.) Furthermore, Germans love the Audio Adaptation of The Three Investigators.The voice actors of the three heroes (who were never swapped out, in spite of the audible change from kid to adult voices during the series' run), even can be considered celebrities in their own right. There have also been two German-produced films starring American actors as the trio and filmed in English, with South Africa playing the US - The Three Investigators and the Secret of Skeleton Island (2007) and The Three Investigators and the Secret of Terror Castle (2009).
  • The Scrappy: Allie Jamison could be considered this, particularly in Death Trap Mine. The fact she turned out to be right about Thurgood in the end (albeit not at all in the way she thought, and nothing to do with the main case they were investigating) didn't stop her smug attitude and Single-Issue Wonk from becoming irritating. May even have been invoked in-story when Jupiter says something deliberately geared to upset her just to get her to leave.
  • Values Dissonance: Surprisingly and pleasantly avoided for the most part, other than the Yellow Peril Mr. Won from Green Ghost (and not only is his race not emphasized, he's balanced in the plot by the heroic Chang) and a few disparaging remarks about girls directed at Allie (to be expected from teenage boys). However, much is made of the Mexican-American Alvaros' pride in Headless Horse, and the valorization of Cortes in the text is...rather uncomfortable.