Grantray-Lawrence's initial forays into animation, THE MARVEL SUPERHEROES SHOW, was remarkably faithful to the comics they were based on, but took "limited animation" to new extremes. I read that when SPIDER-MAN was announced, fans were filled with horror. But when it debuted, they must have been shocked beyond belief to see a series whose animation was closer in quality to the 1964 JONNY QUEST. Nothing that good had EVER been done specifically for Saturday mornings-- before, or since.
Regaridng Season 2, as a kid, I never knew what happened. After ONE new episode for the 2nd season, suddenly, the entire look of the show changed completely. In the early 80's, I read what happened-- Grantray-Lawrence had GONE BANKRUPT. I always figured they spent too much on animation. Close, but not the precise reason. It seems June Patterson, wife of one of the producers, was the show's story editor. She commissioned 5 different versions of EVERY script, one from each of the show's staff writers, and would pick the best ones. This explains why the writing was SO GOOD. But apparently, it was just enough to push them over the edge, and the company went belly-up. A sad end to a studio with so much potential.
Krantz Films, the distributor who set up the deal between Marvel, ABC, and Grantray-Lawrence, had already been paid for the 2nd season-- and they WEREN'T gonna give the money back! So, almost overnight, they got Ralph Bakshi to set up a brand-new studio in New York City, and for as little money as possible, had him team knocking out the rest of the run. (He also did the 3rd season of ROCKET ROBIN HOOD around the same time.)
The later episodes were a strange hybrid of styles, as they combined the NEW art by Gray Morrow (one of the few times a SINGLE comics artist's style was so recognizable on a TV cartoon) with the existing animation from the 1st year. It's a tragedy they didn't have the budget to truly bring Morrow's designs to full animated life. Similarly, the soundtrack combined the original Ray Ellis score from Season 1 with a TON of "library tracks" / "production music" from the KPM, Capitol and DeWolff libraries.
Looking at the 3rd season (which I never saw until it was in syndicated reruns), it's pretty clear the 3rd year's 13 episodes were knocked out JUST to get the complete set up the "magic number" of 52 episodes-- at the time, considered the minimum for a successful syndication package. It worked. The show ran virtually NON-STOP in the 1970's, making SPIDER-MAN more of a household name, I believe, than all the SPIDER-MAN comic-books ever sold right up to this day. (People watch TV-- who reads? heh.)
Incidentally, about those "library tracks"... Bakshi bought them thru a "3rd-party" company who handled such things, and so had NO IDEA of the original source. The KPM and DeWolff tracks were all written & recorded in England, while the Capitol tracks, I've just learned, were recorded in 1956. Some of those also turned up on THE UNTOUCHABLES, THE FUGITIVE, and other shows.
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