Spider-Man is an animated television series that ran from September 9, 1967 to June 14, 1970. It was jointly produced in Canada (for voice talent) and the United States (for animation) and was the first animated adaptation of the Spider-Man comic book series. It first aired on the ABC television network in the United States but went into syndication at the start of the third season.
Spider-Man is the Marvel comics' super-hero created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko. Grantray-Lawrence Animation produced the first season. Seasons 2 and 3 were crafted by producer Ralph Bakshi in New York City.
Synopsis
The series revolves around the scientific-minded teenager Peter Parker who, after being bitten by a radioactive spider, develops amazing strength and spider-like powers. He decides to become a crime-fighting, costumed superhero; all the while dealing with his personal problems and the insecurities resulting from being a teenager. Spider-Man risks his life to fight super-powered criminals such as Mysterio and the Green Goblin; however, New York Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson views him as a criminal, and he is continually writing front page headlines declaring him as such.
The first season of the show dealt primarily with Peter working at the Daily Bugle as a teenage freelance photographer, thereby capturing his relationship with the gruff, demanding J. Jonah Jameson and shyly romancing Betty Brant over the reception desk, while Peter was often being called into action as his crime-fighting alter-ego. Peter's life away from the Bugle's newspaper offices and Aunt May's Forest Hills home were almost never dealt with in these early episodes, and he was also never seen at college-—although he would sometimes visit various professors he clearly knew (such as the opening of "Sub-Zero for Spidey," where he went to see a professor by the name of "Smartyr"). Still, the character design for young Parker was spot-on, combining the conceptualizations of both Steve Ditko (right down to the primary-colored blue suit, white shirt, and red tie) and John Romita Sr., who served as a consultant for the show.
Season 1 contained mostly stories involving classic Spider-Man villains from the comic book series, whose captures were often punctuated by a note signed "your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man." The Ralph Bakshi helmed Seasons 2 and 3 almost entirely eliminated villains from the comic book, choosing to instead have Spider-Man face generic magical villains and monsters.
Production
Timing
First-season episodes were in production about three months before their initial broadcast. For example, Farewell Performance was under the camera in late August 1967, as evident by the description of President Lyndon Johnson's 59th birthday in a newspaper clipping. This episode first aired on 2 December 1967. Ralph Bakshi's episodes were more rushed; an early second-season episode from the fall of 1968 ( Criminals in the Clouds ) has a newspaper clipping from 9 October 1968.
Voice talent
The show's acting talent included Bernard Cowan, who was the dialogue director, narrator, and voice of some supporting characters. Paul Soles provided both the light, mild-mannered voice for college student/photographer Peter Parker and the much deeper, heroic tone for Spider-Man. Peg Dixon provided the voice of Betty Brant as well as other various love interests for Peter in later seasons, and Paul Kligman's distinctive, high-pitched voice was utilized on J. Jonah Jameson and several villains. Also appearing were Vern Chapman as Doctor Octopus, Gillie Fenwick as Dr. Smarter, Curt Conners, the Lizard, and the Vulture. Tom Harvey was the voice of Electro and the Sandman. Chris Wiggins was the voice of Mysterio. Carl Banas was the voice of the Scorpion. Len Carlson was the voice of the Green Goblin, Parafino, and one of the Fly brothers (Stan Patterson). Harry Ramer was the voice of Dr. Smythe, Dr. Noah Boddy, and the other Fly brother (Lee Patterson). Ed McNamera was the voice of the Rhino. Billie Mae Richards was Billy Connors and Max Ferguson was the Phantom.
Budget
In order to be more cost-effective, given the limited budget for the show, Spider-Man's costume for this series only has webbed areas on his head, arms and boots; the rest of his costume is plain (save for the spiders on his chest and back). Additionally, the series also relied upon stock re-use animation from one episode to the next which included everything from Spider-Man swinging across the New York City skyline, to Peter Parker stripping off his white dress shirt to reveal his supersuit (and putting on his mask) during his hidden transformations into the costumed superhero. Character movement was also kept to a minimum, though there was (arguably) more character movement here than in other Marvel-themed projects, such as The Marvel Superheroes , the character movement of which once being described as "like a comic book with the mouths moving."
The opening credits depicts a scene of robbers burgling a jewellery store. In the first shot, the sign reads "Fine Jewlery". Then in the next shot, it changes to the correct spelling ("Jewelry," US spelling).
Mysterio's appearance in the series differed from the first season to the third. In his first appearance, his mask was off periodically, and his head had pointed ears. In his second appearance, his mask and costume were the same as the previous episode, but the mask was never removed. In Season Three's "The Madness of Mysterio", he was never wearing his costume, but he had started carrying a cigar in his mouth, and his ears were no longer pointed.
After Grantray-Lawrence went bankrupt, the second and third seasons were produced at a dramatically reduced budget by Krantz Films under Ralph Bakshi. This cost cutting is most apparent in the third season with two episodes re-using almost the entire footage from two Rocket Robin Hood episodes as well as remaking previous episodes with minimal changes. An error on Spider-Man's costume appeared through Season 1. The spider on his costume (both front and back) was depicted with only 6 legs. By Season 2 new drawings of the costume showed an 8 legged spider, but reused footage from Season 1 maintained season one's error.
In addition, the episodes adopted a darker tone with darkly colored settings, psychedelic images, and atmospheric music. But while the reduced budget took its toll, Bakshi tried to delve further into Peter Parker's everyday life at college as a soft-spoken student, such as where he tries out for the football team, in "Criminals In The Clouds," only to fail miserably, and actually becomes a star pitcher for the baseball team in "Diamond Dust." Peter's romantic life also began to take shape as he started dating a variety of women who were either concealing secrets ("Home") or found themselves angrily waiting for him while Spider-Man saved the city from certain destruction ("Swing City"). Bakshi also provided fans with the first origin story for the character ever presented on TV, the aptly-titled "The Origin Of Spider-Man," which used entire chunks of Stan Lee dialogue, not from the hero's first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15, published in August 1962, but instead from a drastically updated retelling in Spectacular Spider-Man #1, titled "In The Beginning," which was published in July 1968, only a few months before the episode was aired.
Rocket Robin Hood footage
The episodes, "Phantom from the Depths of Time" and "Revolt in the Fifth Dimension" were, for a large part, recycled animation from two episodes ("From Menace to Menace" and "Dimentia Five") of an earlier series, Rocket Robin Hood . Therein, Spider-Man was substituted for Robin Hood on the animation cells.
As well as having two similar episodes to that of Rocket Robin Hood , Spider-Man featured many voice actors previously heard on "Rocket Robin Hood," and many of the second season Spider-Man episodes used the former's music cues.
Theme song
Main article: Spider-Man theme songThe theme song of the show has become a popular standard. The lyrics were written by Academy Award winner Paul Francis Webster, while the music was composed by Bob Harris. The song's opening lines, " Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can, " are almost as synonymous with the character as his costume. The 2002 and 2004 film adaptations have featured characters as buskers performing the song; Jayce Bartok and Elyse Dinh respectively. Both films also feature some version of the song at the very end of the credits: the 2002 adaptation featured the original 1967 recording while the 2004 film had a re-recording by Michael Bublé (also featured on the film's soundtrack). 2007's Spider-Man 3 features a performance of the song by a marching band at a public rally celebrating Spider-Man.
Meanwhile the incidental music from the series, with its jangling surf guitar, groovy brass lines and jazzy scoring, is highly regarded by fans and much sought after by soundtrack collectors. The 1st season featured an original score written by Ray Ellis (who also adapted the Bob Harris theme, in the same way John Barry utilized Monty Norman's "James Bond Theme" in various 007 films, or Nelson Riddle utilized Neil Hefti's "Batman Theme" in addition to new material). The 2nd & 3rd seasons reused the Ellis score while adding a substantial amount of new music taken from KPM Library tracks ("production music") featuring such English composers as Johnny Hawksworth, Syd Dale, David