Spider-Man: The Animated Series
Like Spider-Pig but not as pigish.
Ep. 203 is live!
Welcome back! My word, how I've missed you all! It's week three of Make Mine Marvel Month, and it's the property that lit the candle on this whole crazy idea for a themed month. Our dear friend & Patron Brett aka Bert James chose 1994's Spider-man: The Animated Series, and from there I decided to cover every 90's animated series from Marvel. That said...let's get into it! If you were following comics, down with Marvel, and called yourself a Spidey fan...you were watching this cartoon. Spider-Man delivered five seasons of 65 episodes, making for excellent appointment television for us every Saturday. If you couldn't make it on Saturday chances were you could get caught up on episodes on weekdays during Fox Kid's afternoon blocks. This series managed to adapt some crucial storylines into easily accessible episodes and story arcs, making for an excellent entry point into Spiderman lore, as well as Marvel Comics. Great animation, and excellent character designs, truly it was a great show.
Now that's not to say that the show didn't have its drawbacks, but one could say these were detriments that were out of the team's hands. Going into the 90's, Standards & Practices for most networks really started to clamp down on what was acceptable for children's programming. Changes with the FCC certainly didn't help matters either. The most absurd restrictions put onto the series was the banning of the word "sinister," as well as the watering down of how vampires were depicted. The two "rules" led to us getting The Insidious Six, as opposed to The Sinister Six, as well as a Morbius the Living Vampire with suckers on his hand for consuming plasma.
The toys for this show were simply some of the finest offerings from Toy Biz, Marvel Legends notwithstanding. Just below, you'll see a small sampling of what we had to choose from when this line was dominating the toy aisles. Whatsmore, the line resonates so strongly that Hasbro's Marvel Legends has gone on to give us Spider-man related legends on card backs inspired by the original Toy Biz Line.
Now, there had been some hopes by those involved that a sixth season would happen. However, seeing as how this was the end of the contracted 65 episodes, Fox decided to not move forward with additional episodes and ended the show on what could somehow be considered a cliffhanger as well as a bookend, if you can imagine as much. They did, however, opt for a new cartoon considered a spiritual successor...the short lived Spider-man: Unlimited. It was quite different in its approach. The series saw Spidey relocated to Counter Earth with new villains, new VERSIONS of villains, and versions of villains that were now heroes...it was an interesting approach. I think these factors made it difficult for kids/fans to connect, what with it being SO different from the source material. Obviously, different approaches to Spider-man have worked before, but taking such a radical turn likely acted as a bit of a turn off for most. The Animation was pretty great, though.
That is going to wrap things up for Yesterdaze and week three of Make Mine Marvel Month. Thanks again to Brett/Bert James making this pick, and being the genesis for this themed month. Please join us next week as we dive into the ONLY 90's Marvel Cartoon that WASN'T on Fox, UPN's The Incredible Hulk. As always, thank you for reading and listening, we'll see you next Monday. -Derek
