Forgotten Television: The Amazing Spider-Man 1977

Peter Parker (Nicholas Hammond), while working on a project as a graduate student, gets bitten by a radioactive spider giving him superpowers, including the ability to climb walls, enhanced strength and a type of precognition dubbed “spidey-sense”.  After being given the name Spider-Man by onlookers to a purse-snatching he foiled by climbing a wall, Peter makes a spider themed costume and crafts devices that allow him to spin a type of webbing (ie rope) from his hands.  Now working as a photographer for the Daily Bugel, Peter must stay one step ahead of editor J. Jonah Jameson (David White / Robert F. Simon)  and NYPD Captain Barbera (Michael Pataki) while trying to use his new found powers for good.  Through the series, Spider-Man battles a telekinetic, a cult, clones, an arms dealer and all manner of nefarious bad guys. All except super villains.

The Amazing Spider-Man started off as a backdoor pilot movie just called Spider-Man which premiered on CBS on September 14, 1977, with the regular series starting on April 5, 1978.  Spider-Man was the highest performing CBS production for 1977 and was released theatrically overseas.  The series also drew a good audience and CBS only showed episodes sporadically, using it as a tool to steal market shares from their competitors.  The character was co-created by Stan Lee and was, of course, part of Marvel Comics.  Lee clashed with producer Daniel R. Goodman over the direction of the show.  Stan felt it was too juvenile and despite the show’s popularity, the fans were also very critical of the series, especially season two as the format moved away from the more comic book style and lacked any notable “supervillains”.  The production costs for some of the live action stunds were expensive and hard to film, so many of them were filmed several times at an abundance of angles to be used in future episodes cutting the time and cost of filming. Even with that, CBS cancelled the show for a couple reasons, it was incredibly expensive to produce, but even more than that, they were afraid of being branded a one-dimensional, superficial, “superhero network”.  They were already airing The Incredible Hulk, Wonder Woman, the Captain America and Doctor Strange TV movies and the Saturday morning live action DC Comics’ shows Captain Marvel and Isis. 

I fondly remember watching this series and even now, revisiting it for this article a felt a wave of nostalgia.  Was it good?  Probably not, but as an 8- or 9-year-old kid desperate to see superheroes treated seriously on television, this was a treat! One notable change is that Uncle Ben does not appear in any of the episodes and does not factor in Peter becoming a superhero, drastically deviating from the comic book origin and we never hear the words, “With great power comes great responsibility”.  I wonder if the studio thought the death of Uncle Ben would be too much of a downer for a children’s program.  The special effects are horrible, as there was no such thing as CGI yet and everything had to be done practically.  So there was a lot of superimposed images that never looked real, but it really didn’t matter. His web shooter was big and clunky and shot out something that looked more like rope than a spider’s web.   The acting was corny, and the storylines were juvenile, but it was Spider-Man!  Critics of the show, I think need to remember that this was a series made for kids, and I was its target audience and loved it.  Watching the show again brought back a lot of great childhood memories and I have to say, even now, I kind of enjoyed it!