DC's Superman, Batman, Aquaman and other members of the Justice League found their way onto Saturday morning TV screens in the late 1960s and so did Marvel's Spider-Man. Before that in the earlier 60s, there was a syndicated series of Marvel-based shorts starring the Mighty Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Sub-Mariner and the Hulk, which I recall used to be broadcast on Sunday afternoons on our local Philadelphia NBC affiliate. These were poorly animated shorts resembling the comic book pages they were based on with little movement. The ABC Spider-Man series was a vast improvement, telling two stories per episode and employing more sophisticated animation. The music helped providing exciting background to Spidey's adventures as he battled villains such as Electro, Dr. Octopus, Mysterio, the Green Goblin, and the Rhino while working as Peter Parker, freelance photographer for tyrannical publisher J. Jonah Jameson's Daily Bugle. In this series, he had graduating high school and there was no sign of Aunt May.
Speaking of music, the theme song was certainly catchy, but the singers should have articulated more. There was one lyric which made no sense to me: "Welcome, friends, he's a yourd/Action is his reward" What the hell's a yourd, I thought. It wasn't until decades later that I finally heard the correct words. Patrick Page who was playing the Green Goblin in Julie Taymor's misbegotten Broadway musical version of the web-slinger's exploits, was singing the theme song in a night club and he pronounced the words correctly: "Wealth and fame, he's ignored/Action is his reward."
The second season of the ABC Spider-Man was taken over by Ralph Bakshi, future director of Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic, and the series went downhill. Everything turned dark and the storylines were much weaker. The backgrounds and most of the action shots were repetitive and the characterization fell flat. This ideration of Spidey disappeared after that.
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| Firestar, Iceman and Spider-Man |
Spider-Man re-emerged in 1981 with an NBC cartoon series title Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, narrated by Stan Lee himself. This version relies heavily on the Marvel comics universe and in addition to Spidey's new crimefighting friends, Iceman and Firestar, there were regular appearances by other Marvel characters such as Capt. America, Dr. Strange, Thor, and the X-Men. The premise was Peter Parker, now in college, is rooming with two other super-powered young people Bobby Drake (Iceman) and Angelic Jones (Firestar) in the home of Peter's Aunt May (voiced by June Foray of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame). There's also an annoying little dog called Ms. Lion. (Never mind that Iceman was previously a member of the X-Men in the 1960s and should be much older by now.) They called their team the Spider-Friends, presumably to compete with ABC's Super-Friends based on the DC heroes. As with Batman, there were several other Spider-Man cartoon shows, but this one caught my attention. There was lots of fun action and Lee's hyperbolic narration lent a comic-book aura. Watching the episodes felt like reading old comics.
Unlike Batman and the DC heroes, Spider-Man was conflicted about his status as a super-hero and he was not seen by the authorities as a legitimate agent of the law, but as a dangerous outsider. That's what made him more complex and interesting. There have been other Spider-Man cartoons, but I never got into them. I've also seen many of the movie adaptations, but not the most recent ones.
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