MovieChat Forums > Spider-Man (1967) Discussion > The Bakshi episodes (Seasons 2+3) have a...

The Bakshi episodes (Seasons 2+3) have a grimy and surreal atmosphere


When I was a kid, I preferred the Season 1 episodes and I hated the repetitive swinging that was used and over-abused in Seasons 2+3

But nowadays, when I watch this show on DVD, I always find myself preferring the Bakshi era of this series. There is a weird, psychedelic and otherworldly quality to them. The colors are definitely darker.

My absolute favorite episodes are "Cold Storage" and "Revolt in the Fifth Dimension". Yeah, the latter is just ripped off from Rocket Robin Hood, but I actually prefer the Spider-Man version. And in "Cold Storage", we are left wondering if Spider-Man actually time traveled to a far flung dystopic New York City or if he just had a near-death hallucination as he nearly froze to death.

I find the constant swinging to be a bit mesmerizing, and the musical interlude is pretty cool as well.

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The only memories I had from the Bakshi episodes was the vine (and rollerball seeds) and the flying snake (which I remembered being yellow and flying underground) but I thought they were in the same episode where the buildings disappear underground. Watching the boxset ruined the memory for me and the episodes are repetitive but the music is awesome and the episodes are good and weird.

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I love the psychedelic weirdness, too. If Bakshi had only stuck with the two-stories-per-episode format when making the second season, though ...

Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for.

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I like the Bakshi seasons also. I never knew the difference as a kid in the 70's. But as a teen in I became a bakshi fan. Not even for the famous ones like Fritz the Cat or wizards, I was hooked on the dark griminess of Coonskin(Street Fight) and Heavy Traffic.

When I read the initial reviews for the dvd set, and learned of Bakshi's involvement, I had to see them. They're not terrible. Yeah, the animation quality took a dip. But They are definitely interesting to look at in their dark, psychedelic weirdness. And they're certainly imaginative stories. The background music score is really good too. Seems like they used a lot of surf music in the later seasons.

Overall, I think the seasons are very different, but equally enjoyable.

Coincidentally, the later seasons of Star Trek got very weird, psychedelic and colorful when their budget was cut. Those are some of my favorite episodes of that series also.

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I loved this show as a kid in the 70's! I watched a few later episodes & they're not what I remember at all. Maybe they didn't run all of them in syndication. I didn't remember the change in "animation" or music score. The first season animation was simple but not bad. I just watched the 3rd season Rhino episode & it's terrible! I couldn't bring myself to watch the green skinned Mysterio episode.

Are there any decent season 2 or 3 episodes??

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Ralph Bakshi almost ruined the Spiderman franchise alongwith the Lord of the Rings franchise.

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He is the schlockiest of the schlocks. I thought he did all seasons of it? Not so?

He also re-used a ton of stuff from his other cartoons! There's that whole trip into a microscopic insect world that he also used in at least one, if not two other cartoons he was doing. If some of those stories seemed really out of place it's because they were originally used for "Rocket Robin Hood". They just slapped Spider-man into the storyboards and cels in place of other characters.

I think this guy's entire staff were probably partying all the time and the sloppy, lazy production shows throughout his body of work.

I've recently gone back and watched some episodes. Liking this is all about the nostalgia of being a child and being introduced to the colorful hero and his friends and troubles and villains, and the really sweet soundtrack. It really hasn't held up well, regardless of who was doing the episodes. But, oh, back then, I was obsessed with it and watched it religiously every day after school.

The animation is worse in "Fantastic Four", but at least it stays truer to Lee and Kirby's story lines.

It's also great that cartoon Spidey has resurfaced as a popular meme.

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These Bakshi episodes have a feel you have to be on drugs to understand them.
You find yourself watching episodes and asking yourself didn't I see this already because of the same scenes being used over and over.

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