MovieChat Forums > Spider-Man (1981) Discussion > WTF? I never knew of this show.

WTF? I never knew of this show.

posted 11 years ago by phonemadness2000
5 replies | jump to latest

I grew up watching Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends on Saturday mornings, but I've never seen or heard of this. Just found it on Netflix. I can see why this show didn't quite "make it," but what's really neat about it is that SM&HAF was obviously created to make this show better.
- The opening sequence shares a LOT (including Spider-Man standing on his large logo and the announcer's "Spider-Man" said the EXACT same way)
- Spider-Man shooting two webs to jump off the logo.
- Numerous action shots in the intro were partially re-used
- The background music (numerous different tunes) re-used
- The web-animation/sound for scene switching
.
.
.

The show is a bit painful to watch, from bad jokes, to bad stories, to Spider-Man's annoying voice, but I will press on and finish all the episodes.

[–] tylerism1 11 years ago

Well, was it worth it? I know a lot of it is indeed painful to watch but you have to consider both the intended audience and the time-period it was made.

I remember reading that this one was made for syndication while the other was for network airing (NBC Saturday mornings). It's possible to see "Amazing Friends" as this show's unofficial sequel and that's how I like to think of it. I actually think that they could have merged all the writing staff, production staff and voice talent and put the two shows together into one quality, longer running, show and it would have been a big hit on whatever network would buy it. Would have been nice to see.

You think that the jokes in this series are bad and Spidey's voice is annoying? Hmm. I actually think these "still lame" jokes are better than "AF" and I tend to prefer Ted Schwartz's performance, and voice, to Dan Gilvezan's even though I was exposed to Dan's work first.
"To each 'is own" I guess.

Its a planet-destroying superlaser. How well does it need to be calibrated?

[–] richard.fuller1 10 years ago

I never heard of this one, either.

[–] thunderultrazord 10 years ago

I first saw this on BBC's Saturday Superstore in the mid 80s, but this was after I'd seen Amazing Friends, I liked it at them time but AF was my favourite of the two but now upon rewatching both series I like them both as much.

[–] Xcalat3 (3701) 4 years ago

I just found out about this myself, talk about and unknown show.

[–] PaladinNJ (20310) 4 years ago

I've never heard of this one either. IMDB says it's a sequel to the original 1967 version I grew up watching (in reruns)