The Amazing Spiderman ( TV Series 1977 - 1979 )

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The Amazing Spider-Man is the first live-action TV series based on the popular comic book The Amazing Spider-Man, not counting his appearances on the educational The Electric Company series, and was shown in the USA between 1977-1979. It consisted of 13 episodes, which included a pilot movie in the fall of 1977; five one-hour episodes in the spring of 1978; six one hour episodes aired in the fall of 1978 and winter of 1979; and then a final two-hour episode in the summer of 1979. None of the episodes are available on DVD, but almost all of them have been released on VHS. Despite the series being set in New York City, it was mostly filmed in Los Angeles.

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The series first aired as a two-hour film known simply as "Spider-Man". In it, University student Peter Parker gains super powers after being bitten by a radioactive spider and uses his new super powers to get a job at the Daily Bugle and stop a con man who is using mind control. It is noted that in the pilot J. Jonah Jameson was played by actor David White and subsequently replaced with Robert F. Simon for the weekly series.

 

At the time The Amazing Spider-Man played on the CBS television network, it was with other live action television series or movies based on the comic book characters. Including The Incredible Hulk, Wonder Woman, Captain America and Doctor Strange.

The Amazing Spider-Man series had solid ratings throughout its run, but CBS was leery about being labeled the "superhero network" and fans were highly critical of the series for the changes made to the comic book storyline and the lack of any real "supervillains".

 

To add insult to injury, Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee disliked the show, and was vocal about his dissatisfaction with it; he once said in an interview that he felt the series was "too juvenile" - a controversial statement given his credit as script consultant on each episode.

Spider-Man and the Twin Towers.Despite criticism of the series as far removed from the source material, the show has so far featured the only live-action appearance of Peter Parker's spider-tracer tracking devices, which are prominently featured in several episodes throughout the series.

 

As previously mentioned, contrary to popular belief, The Amazing Spider-Man was not canceled because of low ratings. During its first season, "The Amazing Spider-Man" was a top 20 show, coming in 19th for the season. In fact, the series performed well in the ratings, but the series was expensive to produce and the CBS executives wanted to shed the network's image as "The Superhero Network," so they canceled the show, in addition to Wonder Woman. However, The Incredible Hulk remained at the network until 1982, with budget cuts, due to it having a broad demographic appeal.

In the mid-1980s and early 1990s, two attempts were reportedly made to recreate an Amazing Spider-Man live-action television series. The first one would have had the original cast team-up with the cast from The Incredible Hulk television series.

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This was part of a plan to have several television movies featuring the Incredible Hulk and various Marvel Comics characters (three had already been aired, the first with Thor, the second with Daredevil, while the announced She-Hulk did not appear in the third).

Reportedly, this attempt finally fell through when Bill Bixby died of cancer in 1993. A second attempt would have been an entirely new series that died in pre production because the networks wanted to make Spider-Man into a mutant.

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Characters

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Nicholas Hammond as Peter Parker/Spider-Man
David White as J. Jonah Jameson (pilot)
Robert F. Simon as J. Jonah Jameson (series)
Chip Fields as Rita Conway
Michael Pataki as Capt. Barbera (pilot and first season only)
Ellen Bry as Julie Masters (second season only)

 

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Episode Guide

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Season 1

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1      1-01                05/Apr/78   The Deadly Dust (1)
2      1-02                12/Apr/78   The Deadly Dust (2)
3      1-03                19/Apr/78   The Curse of Rava
4      1-04                26/Apr/78   Night of the Clones
5      1-05                03/May/78   Escort to Danger

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Season 2

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6      2-01                05/Sep/78   The Captive Tower
7      2-02                12/Sep/78   A Matter of State
8      2-03                25/Nov/78   The Con Caper
9      2-04                30/Dec/78   The Kirkwood Haunting
10     2-05                07/Feb/79   Photo Finish
11     2-06                21/Feb/79   Wolfpack
12     2-07                06/Jul/79   The Chinese Web (1)
13     2-08                06/Jul/79   The Chinese Web (2)