History of Spider-Man on TV and in the Movies

The hottest Marvel character on the stands right now is that amazing arachnid, Spider-Man himself. Peter Parker's be-webbed alter ego has been a television star several times over, both in live action and animated series. Although plans for a big screen debut have been in the works for years, the long awaited Spider-Man movie never seemed to spin its web until only recently when the legal tangle of who had the rights to the character were resolved.

Saturday, September 9th, 1967 was a major day for Marvel fans, as two of their favorite comic series reached the small screen within the same hour. The Fantastic Four premiered first, followed shortly by the all-new Spider-Man (yes, without the official hyphen in his name!) Having seen a slicker animation style in other Saturday morning cartoons, Grant Ray-Lawrence (the company responsible for the limited movement Marvel Superheroes show the previous year) had decided to fully animate web-head's adventures. On board to help out were ex-Disney artist Shamus Culhane, and a young Ralph Bakshi. You may recall this latter man's name from a recent famous animated movie or three. Canadian actors were used to fill the voice roles; Bernard Cowan played our hero for the first season, while Peter Soles became his voice for the second season. Armed with Spider-Man comics for reference, the producers went about telling all-new Spidey adventures. They utilized not only such classic villains as Doctor Octopus, Electro, Mysterio, the Green Goblin, and the Lizard but also newly created villains such as the Impostor and DR Zap. The show's catchy theme song, "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man," was well known among the nation's youth, a credit to writers Bob Harras and a man with an interesting last name, Paul Francis Webster.

With the financial collapse of Grantray-Lawrence, Bakshi and distributor Steven Krantz formed Krantz Animation and completed the work on Spider-Man's 52 episodes. Unfortunately, with 32 of them left to finish, the studio had to turn out one 22-minute show per week, meaning much older animation scenes of Spider-Man swinging through the city were reused to pad the episodes. Despite this, the show was popular enough to last until September 1970, and it has been a hit in syndication markets ever since.

Perhaps the earliest memory of Spider-Man for many people is from a children's educational television show called The Electric Company, which aired on Public Television Stations in the 1970's. Spidey's role on the show was more as super educator than super hero. This version of our beloved Web-Head was portrayed by actor Danny Seagren and appeared in three minute segments on the show, in which he exposed grammatical oddities and villains. One of Spidey's functions as a harbinger of grammatical goodness was to point out words within other words such as the "cat" in scatter or the "man" in human. Although he didn't use his super powers on The Electric Company, Spidey looked much more authentic than he did on the CBS live action series. Credit this to a well made costume.

Peter Parker's alter ego was down for another seven years, until Stan Lee hit Hollywood. There, while lunching one day with Dan Goodman, Lee sold him and CBS the rights for a Spider-Man live action series. Goodman in turn put Charles Fries in control of the show. Thus on September 14th 1977, Spider-Man premiered on prime time with a two hour pilot film. The film cast Nicholas Hammond (one of the children in The Sound of Music), in the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man, while David White (of Bewitched fame)played the blustering J. Jonah Jameson. The younger Aunt May was played by Irene Tedrow, while Michael Pataki played the new Police Captain Barbera, a constant thorn in Spider-Man's side.

The show did well in the ratings, and eventually spun off a semi-regular series called The Amazing Spider-Man. Five episodes ran from April through May of 1978, all to respectable ratings, yet CBS failed to green-light a regular series. Instead they ordered eight more episodes and showed them spottily from September 1978 through July 1979!

The episodes that aired are as follows:

Apparently, CBS officials were nervous about having two live-action prime-time super heroes on their network (the highly rated Incredible Hulk show was also running that year), and chopped Spidey's web-line in two, after only thirteen episodes.

The wall-crawler next appeared as a guest star, this time in a fellow arachnid-lover's show. Peter Roth, ABC's development man had helped get Spider-Woman on the air, but he wanted Spider-Man to guest star as added viewer incentive. He did so in a late 1979 episode, before crawling back to his web-nest for a two-year snooze. Spider-woman's own show lasted only one season itself before Jessica Drew, publisher of Justice magazine, retired.

The new Marvel Productions rose from the ashes of the ill fated DePatie-Freleng (who had lensed the Spider-Woman series), and in September of 1981, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends premiered on NBC. The well animated show teamed Spidey with Iceman and (the as-yet unrevealed mutant) Firestar, a character created especially for the show. The lively and fun shows were well written for Saturday morning fare, and often guest starred other super heroes such as the X-Men, Captain America, Sunfire, the Sub-Mariner, Dr. Strange, the Black Knight, and even Shanna the She-Devil! Spider-Man and friends fought against the likes of the Red Skull, Mysterio, Green Goblin, Chameleon, and even Loki. In one episode, interestingly titled "Spidey Goes to Hollywood" our hero even met the Incredible Hulk and his evil robot double. Shades of things to come.....

The 1983 season found Spider-Man sharing a newly-expanded hour show with that very same green goliath; the show became The Incredible Hulk and the Amazing Spider-Man. The third and final season of the series found the billing reversed and the show became The Amazing Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk. Once again, our brave hero returned to his web and his comic book adventures, an area less threatening to life and limb than the Hollywood jungle.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, work was never ending on a proposed Spider-Man feature film. First announced in the early eighties, Poltergeist helmer Tobe Hooper was originally slated to direct this big budget pic for Cannon. Then he bowed out and the film was announced for Christmas 1985, directed by Joseph Zito (Missing in Action III) with a script by Ted Newsom. Later, it was pushed back to Christmas 1986 with a new script by Ted Newsom and John Brancato. Easter 1987 was announced as the next date, but Christmas 1987 and 1988 pushed past before the project was drastically altered. Now Joseph Goldman was the writer, although screenplay credits went to Barney Cohen, Ted Newsom and John Brancato.

Cannon collapsed, and movie mogul Menahem Golan's 21st Century Productions picked up the rights. With a new script by Neil Ruttenberg, Golan planned to have B-movie man Albert Pyun, who directed the Captain America Movie, direct the feature after finishing the good Captain's film. Once again, Spider-Man was announced for Christmas 1990.

Again this date was missed and next in line was James Cameron who was ready to direct once he had finished up with Terminator II. But the company producing the picture, Carolco, went bankrupt causing a legal nightmare when it came to who owned the rights of Spider-Man. A legal battle ensued and it was only last year when the rights were awarded to Sony. Here is the statement issued in Early March:

"After years of web-spinning and legal wrangling, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Marvel Enterprises have signed an agreement that will allow them to jointly launch a Spider-Man franchise for film and TV. Sony and Marvel will co-produce pics and television series based on the popular character. The duo also established a joint venture to handle merchandising. Sony chairman and CEO John Calley, Marvel president and CEO Eric Ellenbogen and chief creative officer Avi Arad jointly made the announcement Monday. The Sony-Marvel agreement comes a day before the parties were scheduled to start trial over rights to Spider-Man. The parties also settled with MGM, another longtime claimant to the webbed one. The settlement leaves only Viacom claiming TV rights. The deal brings a potentially lucrative franchise to Sony. "This company has always suffered from not being able to market a franchise film," Calley said. "But right now, we have several in the works, such as `Stuart Little,' `Jumanji 2,' `Charlie's Angels,' and sequels to `Men in Black' and `Godzilla.' " Calley termed the Spider-Man character the "jewel in the crown of Sony's franchise vision." Though Sony has yet to put a Spider-Man project into development, helmer James Cameron has expressed interest in creating such a feature. As part of the settlement with MGM, Sony picked up a treatment for "Spider-Man" that the "Titanic" director wrote in 1991, when he was expected to do the project for the now-defunct Carolco. Calley said Cameron would be an ideal choice to shepherd a Spider-Man pic for the studio, but that no discussions have taken place. "We haven't even looked at the Cameron treatment yet," Calley said. "We have not been involved in the Sony-Marvel negotiations and are not currently attached to the project," said Rae Sanchini, president of Lightstorm Entertainment, Cameron's production company. As for stars, both Jim Carrey and Leonardo DiCaprio have eyed the role. Marvel's Ellenbogen described the Sony deal as "a bunch of money up front against a gross participation in the picture. What's more significant to Marvel in economic terms is that we own and control the merchandising rights _ the main source of income for Marvel will be merchandising." The announcement brings to a close, albeit with a few loose strings, one of the longest-running rights disputes in Hollywood history. As part of the joint venture, Sony will also get merchandising rights, but Marvel will get the lion's share because it will also manufacture any Spider-Man toys. When the company came out of bankruptcy in 1998, it merged with toy manufacturer Toy Biz. Spider-Man's tortured journey to film began in 1985 when Marvel granted the Cannon Group the right to make a live-action Spider-Man movie. Those rights eventually landed with 21st Century Film, which, strapped for cash, sold homevid rights that were ultimately acquired by Sony and TV exhibition rights eventually picked up by Viacom. In 1991 Carolco made a new agreement with Marvel, buying the rights with the intention that Cameron would write, produce and direct. Cameron was reportedly paid $3 million, and he wrote a detailed treatment, but money troubles prevented Carolco from going forward. Litigation began in 1993 among 21st Century, Carolco, Sony and Viacom. MGM entered the fray in 1994, having purchased rights from 21st Century and Carolco, both now bankrupt. Last year, Marvel, emerging from its own bankruptcy, came roaring back into the rights dispute, claiming that it had the exclusive right to make a Spider-Man film and that all the rights that had been granted had long since expired. With the case headed for a trial set to start today in L.A. Superior Court, a round of frenzied activity began. Last month, Judge Aurelio Munoz granted Marvel's motions for summary judgment against MGM. With Monday's agreement announcement between Marvel and Sony and its settlement of all outstanding claims with MGM."

The latest now is that Sam Raimi is up to direct with a possible script written by David Koepp based on James Cameron's earlier treatment.

In the mean time, Spider-Man was adapted into animated form once again in a 65 episode animated series which ran a successfuly in the late 90's. The show came to an end but featured many guest stars and familiar storylines. A new show is now in syndication called Spider-Man unlimited which has our hero battling the forces of evil in a parallel universe in a brand new costume.