None of the characters from the Marvel comic series appeared in any "Spidey Super Stories" segment. Many times, the scene cut to a pre-drawn panel of Spidey using his web-shooters, with the caption "Take that!". He also never appeared out of his costume as Peter Parker and, given the series' budget limitations, rarely used his web-shooters. Unlike other live-action and cartoon productions of Spider-Man, this version of the web-slinging hero did not speak out loud, instead communicating only with word balloons (having a similar role to Clarabell the Clown of Howdy Doody), in order to encourage young viewers to practice their reading skills because he was drawn without a mouth. In many of these sketches, viewers were addressed as "true believers."
The cast of The Electric Company played the roles of the various characters in each story, with another serving as narrator. Stories involved the masked superhero foiling mischievous characters who were involved in criminal activities (such as burglary or assault).
It premiered during the premiere of The Electric Company's first (1974) episode of the fourth (1974–1975) season, show 391.Ī total of (at least) 29 segments were produced during the final three seasons of The Electric Company.
But it also reflected the company’s ambitions – unreachable at the time, but now feeling like just another night at the movies.Spidey Super Stories was a live-action and main segment on the PBS children's television series The Electric Company.Įpisodes featured the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man, provided to the Children's Television Workshop free of charge, and was played (always in costume) by puppeteer and dancer Danny Seagren (who replaced the recently departed invisible him on The Electric Company in 1974). As a form of promotion, it’s brilliant: getting kids excited about Spider-Man at a young age. It even got around the ban on supporting figures with its unseen villain, The Green Glob, which phonetically resembles a much better-known Spider-Man fo e. Christopher Reeves’ Superman: The Movie wouldn’t appear in theaters for another four years, and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man – whose smash success in 2002 help set the stage for the Marvel Cinematic Universe – was almost 30 years away.Īnd yet a two-minute sketch on public television anticipated not only a Spider-Man movie, but multiple movies that would generate enthusiastic new fans. Beyond a quickly produced Batman movie capitalizing on the Adam West TV show and a few serials from the 1940s, superheroes simply hadn't appeared in live-action form on the big screen at that point. It doesn’t sound particularly groundbreaking now, but in 1974, superhero movies didn’t exist as they do today. Underneath it all is the sketch’s simple idea that there are Spider-Man movies – plural – and people are mad for them.
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