Spider-Man

Although the animation was terrible by today's standards, this series had a style that was very much in keeping with the 60's Spider-man comic books. There were a standard set of shots with Spidey swinging along buildings, or coming right at the screen, which they used over and over and over again.

Some of the episodes were taken right from the comic books(such as the one where Jameson sends a robot with his face on it after Spider-man--it even used lines directly from the comic). Others were rip offs of shows from Rocket Robin Hood(in particular the "Dimentia Fiiive!!!" one). These were the worst ones because they tended to meander and frequently had these psychedelic background skies that were really depressing to stare at.

It was a good show for laughs--intentional and otherwise. Whenever I read a Spider-man comic--I think of J. Jonah Jameson, Peter Parker, and Spider-man with the voices they have in this series.

Note: the music was actually pretty good--very fast moving--and of course the title song with its memorable lyrics: "Spider-man, Spider-man, does whatever a spider can, can he swing from a web? Take a look overhead, hey there, there goes the Spider-man!"

Once you hear that song--you'll never get it out of your head.

The animation was not great by present standards, but through the age of 12 or so this series hit the spot. Further, though they leaned heavily on repeating with stock footage, most of it was pretty good and represented the action and strength of the character well. Every once in a while they turned the background sideways or something and achieved a startling effect without using new elements.

I love that Peter Parker sounds like a boy and Spidey sounds like a man. It's the uni, don't you know.

They best part for me is the theme song, one of the best of all time, and all of the incidental music (even the bulk of the special effects). Crime jazzy and dark. All of the episodes had great, swinging musical textures and overtones.

The Bakshi stuff is stellar. Really idiosyncratic and daring. Spidey ends up removed to different dimensions and levels of the earth, battling the supernatural than the super- villainous. The humans are generally pawns caught in a cosmic battle between good and evil and Spidey comes through, natch. The oft-referred to backgrounds (black, dark blue, purples, fiery reds, etc., were awesome, as were the castles and thorny, leafless backdrops (ala Sleeping Beauty). The color schemes were sickening (purple and off greens with splotchy reds and hints of bruisy yellow. Brilliant. The music also took a further leap from poppier crime jazz and soda stand teen rock to psych-out freak rock interludes, darker crime jazz, and even odd sci-fi and kraut-rockish stretches. Watch the first episode on disc 3 or 4, the one with the Mole Men. The music is absolutely incredible.

My two kids, 3 and 5, respectively, love these Spider-Man cartoons. They hold up for me, as well.

I grew up watching this series in the early 1970s, and I'm happy that someone finally placed them onto DVDs. The set of 6 discs is rather deep, with all the episodes filling the DVDs. It's rather thin on extras. But there are what, 3 hours per disc? And the episodes are in chronological order, from the first to the final episode.

Some of the episodes weren't digitally remastered, as most seem to have been, but heck, when I compare them to the VHS tapes I used to purchase at comic book shows where the tapes were recorded from UHF stations yielding poor reception, I won't complain. I'm just glad they're here. For the price, it's plenty of bang for the buck.

As for the episodes, Ralph Bakshi took over as producer midway through the run of the original episodes (his cartoons can be found about midway through the third DVD). Reading through postings on the net, people have said that Bakshi took over and operations moved from Canada to the US when it was cheaper then to produce the animation in the states... and some staff cutting was done while the episodes were still cranked out at a good pace. Hence, people claim, a good bit of regurgitation of characters and plot lines increased. FYI, the Canadian episodes had Spidey webbing in clear skies, while the Bakshi episodes introduced eerie, watercolored skies.

I'm a visual guy, and love the vibrant tones. Plus, it seems as though the music picked up a lot with the change. I just "dig" the way the music sounded. You can even hear a musician yelp every now and then in some jam sessions. So, I can't go Bakshi bashing. Usually, it's the networks that trim budgets, and Bakshi, I feel, had to make due. He did the best he could, I think, and I bet that if the budget had been fat, Bakshi would have had the animators take time and add depth and detail.

The problem with comic books today, is that they are waaayy too sophisticated for most kids to comprehend... I read Spiderman when I was 6 and 7 years old (I read it when I was older as well, but I will get to that) and I could follow the stories to some exent, but mostly I read it because the cartoon was soooo cool (much cooler than any later Spiderman incarnations)... the animation was quirky, the voices were very Shatnerian (I think I just invented a word, and I will now use it frequently), but it was fun and it made sense to a young mind.

Now, don't get me wrong about comic books, I really appreciated the more sophisticated stories when I was a teenager, but I have no idea how the medium will gain new fans when you cannot hope to get involved with them until you are at least a teenager (when such things are uncool)... and a lot of the material is too intense for young eyes anyway... maybe a line of comics for younger fans would be good. I dunno, but I feel bad that my kid will likely not have comic book heroes in his life to any meaningful degree... I just wish that cool shows like Bakshi's Spiderman were still on the air to fill in the gaps.

OK, so I'll admit maybe it could've included Liz and Flash and maybe it could've had have some more Aunt May. But as far as complaining about the animation and the fact that Spider-man "doesn't have all webs on his costume" is just ridiculous as the show had a very limited budget. Although.... One thing I didn't like was the voice acting, really no excuse for that Jameson was good, Betty Brant was decent but, that was really it. Spider-man sounded like an a man in his mid-30s so it definitely didn't deliver, and I want that "energy" from that Spider-man. The kind of energy that just gets you excited a good voice actor can do that, Mark Hamill's Joker did that. But in the end I actually thought the makers did a pretty good job with what the had to work with. It could've been a LOT worse. And also, this show gave us the classic Spiderman theme song that pretty much everyone knows. So all in all it pretty decent especially the 1st season, It's kinda a either you "Love' it or you "Hate" it show. However, I'm sure nostalgia could be maker true haters rate it higher