AllofTV.net - Spider-Man (1967)

• Season 1

Spider-Man is an animated television series that ran from September 9, 1967 to June 14, 1970. It was originally produced in Canada 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. It featured the adventures of Marvel Comics' most famous character and it has proven to be the most famous, as well as the final, production by Grantray-Lawrence Animation in Toronto, Ontario. Some Canadian talent was employed on the project, while animators from the United States were brought in at considerable expense and made up most of the crew behind the show. Grantray-Lawrence was contracted by Krantz Films, Inc. and Marvel Comics to yield 52 episodes. 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. The first season of the show dealt primarily with Peter working at the Daily Bugle as a teenage freelance photographer, perfectly capturing his relationship with the gruff, demanding J. Jonah Jameson and shyly romancing Betty Brandt over the reception desk, while 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"). 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) to John Romita Sr. who served as a consultant for the show. However, there were concessions. 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. 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. 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 with two episodes re-using almost the entire footage from two Rocket Robin Hood episodes as well as remaking previous episodes with minimal changes. In addition, the episodes adopted a darker tone with darkly colored settings, psychadelic images, and atmospheric music. But where 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 are 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-ever origin story for the character ever presented on TV, (the aptly-titled "Origin of Spider-Man") which literally used entire chunks of dialogue from Stan Lee's comic introduction for the wall-crawling hero in Amazing Fantasy #15. Spider-Man was initially broadcast in the U.S. on Saturday mornings on ABC. The first episode that aired was "The Power of Doctor Octopus"/"Sub-Zero For Spidey" on September 9, 1967. For the full run of the first season and of the second season, the show was seen at 11 am Atlantic Time. ABC's last Saturday morning broadcast of Spider-Man was on August 30, 1969, with 39 half-hour episodes (many with two separate stories) aired. The show went on hiatus until the following March, when a third season began a six-month run, from March 22 to September 6, 1970, on Sunday mornings, at 11:30 am Atlantic Time. The entire series was released as Spider-Man: The '67 Collection on DVD in 2004.