WTF Happened to The Amazing Spider-Man TV series? (1977)

i want you to hit me as hard as you can in august of 1962 the 15th issue of a comic book called amazing fantasy hit the newsstands and the world changed as a result why because it introduced one of the most unique and cool superheroes of all time spider-man of course i'm not saying that other superheroes like superman or batman weren't amazing but spider-man was special while many readers love to read about a billionaire dressing up like a flying rat to fight crime spidey was just a regular teenager who still had to deal with bullies and juggle relationships while fighting menacing super villains all thanks to his two creators stan lee and steve ditko okay let me stop right now by just saying lee and ditko there's gonna be people in the comments fighting over this yes i am aware there's much debate over who created spider-man was it lee and ditko was it just ditko was it even kirby well i am not going to go down that rabbit hole because the point of this video is to talk about the very first actor to play spider-man nicholas hammond wrong wrong wrong wrong okay god damn it yes i know danny segren technically did play spider-man on the electric company but that was only in small sketches and he did not talk so i don't think he counts no it was nicholas hammond who portrayed peter parker in his adventures as spider-man as the star of the amazing spider-man tv series which ran for one tv movie and two seasons on cbs for a total of 11 episodes and even though this show got some amazing ratings it was canned by the network so why would a show that was so popular wind up seemingly becoming the shame of marvel comics why has it been buried all of these years well let us find out in this episode of gone but not forgotten due to the success of the spider-man sketches on the electric company stan lee took advantage of the character's popularity on television by approaching cbs with the rights to a live-action spider-man show kicking off with a spider-man tv movie which starred sound of music co-star nicholas hammond as peter parker in addition to david white as j jonah jameson hilly hicks as joe robbie robertson jeff donnell as may parker and michael pataki as an original character captain barbara the tv movie was a hit that became the highest performing cbs production for 1977 proving so popular that it was actually released overseas as a theatrical film so cbs immediately put into production a tv series called the amazing spider-man which aired from september 1977 to july 1979 but the cast was switched up a bit beginning with jonah now being played by robert f simon according to hammond david white was unavailable to come back for the show because he was dealing with a possible nervous breakdown and simon played jj a bit different than david white did whose portrayal was more dismissive and annoyed at peter while simon played jj more as a judgmental dick and a cheapskate along the lines of ebenezer scrooge although there were a few times you could see him treat peter a little bit better only to be immediately followed by a dick move this really makes the whole trip worthwhile as a matter of fact you know i'm gonna let you have this whole suite here for the rest of the week at my expense that is really nice of you thank you but mr jameson today is friday the only two more days left in the week well what do you want for nothing wow what a dick but one glaring difference from the comics was that jay jonah jameson was actually indifferent towards spider-man seriously the most we ever got out of him was this to take all the credit but i have to admit i couldn't have pulled it off without spider-man oh well he'd be delighted to hear you say that captain do you mind if the bugle quotes you on that not on your life i'm not giving any recognition to some freak who runs around in a red and blue union suit gigi's character would change again in season two but we'll get to that later for now let's focus towards the original character of captain barbera barbera was your typical grumpy and rude nyc detective that you would see on tv back in the day actually he was a little bit more like j jonah jameson in that he was quick to complain about spider-man interfering and sometimes maybe even being partially responsible for the crime he was also annoyed that parker was always pestering him at the crime scene and finally we're introduced to rita conway played by chip fields rita was a replacement for robbie robertson who had been in the tv movie pilot and it's been theorized by fans that she's actually an adaptation of the spider-man character glory grant but i completely disagree with that i actually think she's more like betty brandt yes like laurie and betty she is also jj's secretary but i felt she had more drive like betty did she was smart and could manipulate jonah to help peter on numerous occasions and she was also not afraid to stand up to jameson even if it could have cost her her job but she knew that jj saw her as a daughter and would never let anything happen to her which was shown in the episode called wolf pack where rita is mind controlled into committing a crime and jj does everything he can to clear her name however the true star of the show was nicholas hammond and i really enjoyed his portrayal of peter he played peter as such an earnest character who was smart and kind and always wanted to do the right thing although he did come off a bit creepy in the episode called curse of rava where he stalks a girl to get information on a possible cult how do you know i'd be coming this way because your next class is in the chem building which is right over there how'd you know that oh a good reporter never reveals these sources did you get in here the window do you do that a lot just the past couple of months yikes but all kidding aside hammond took this role very seriously as he wanted to play peter as a real person and not a character from a comic book it kind of reminds me of toby mcguire's portrayal of peter parker in sam rainey spidey movies the show focused on peter's college years much like the john ramita and stan lee run of the spider-man comic and the best example of this is in the first two episodes of season one called the deadly dust both of which were repackaged as the film's spider-man strikes back which was also shown in theaters outside the states in these two episodes peter and his classmates protest a professor who's procured plutonium from the government for an experiment the professor insists that there is no danger as it's just a small amount which will be guarded but three college students who are friends with peter decide to steal it and what is their goal what are they going to do you built a bomb to prove how easy it was we weren't going to explode it we're going to give it back oh yeah that makes perfect sense while all that is happening peter gets assigned with a reporter from another paper to track down the missing plutonium and this reporter's name is um well i think peter's reaction says it all here mr jameson mr parker how nice to meet you i have been looking forward to this it's very nice to meet you too miss miss hoffman [Music] um wow okay uh moving on the reporter's name is gail hoffman played by joanna cameron and some of you who watch tv in the 70s may know her as the star of another superhero show called isis and modern audiences may know that character from dc's legends of tomorrow although she's no longer called isis because tv executives think that audiences cannot tell the difference between a person called isis and the terrorist organization of the same name again that makes perfect sense morons hammond said that while filming these episodes everybody was joking that the episode should have been called spider-man and isis in fact there was even talk of actually trying to do a crossover episode but clearly that did not happen anyway the episode shows these idiots going through with making the bomb but don't worry they're being careful the radiation cannot hurt them because they're wearing sweaters of course don't you idiots know what blocks radiation wool of course an evil arms dealer comes to learn about the bomb and sends his henchmen to look for it as one of the college students tragically gets sick from radiation weren't you guys monitoring the radiation levels we thought wrong feel all right i'm fine but i wasn't working directly with the plutonium my car was are you full don't you know that the radiation shielding of the sweater is negated when you put a lab coat over it but i do love this episode mostly because of the sheer 1970s of it all the clothes the acting and of course the obsession with kung fu you see the henchmen in this episode don't carry guns but [ __ ] no they carry real weapons like ninja stars and nunchucks who the hell needs a gun when you can do a bad karate kick so our bad guy captures isis and very nice why do i have to dress this way well my dear that's because teenage boys watch this show wink wink although it's a little long at times the deadly dust is a fun episode and i can see why this ended up being repackaged as a film overseas now let's move on to talking about the best aspect of this show the stunts whenever i speak to somebody about the 70s spider-man tv show i always hear them making fun of the bad green screen or the obvious ropes made to look like webbing but if you really watch this series you'll see some insane stunts that you could never do in film or tv today we've got a real person swinging from one building to another here as well as a person dressed like spider-man who's literally crawling up a building and one of the most impressive stunts was in the season one episode a matter of state where spider-man crawls up the empire state building i swear to god i had to rewind the scene because i could not believe that there was actually a guy climbing up the empire state building also i love this guy who pokes his head out of his window to see spider-man climbing past his office on the 50th floor did i just see spider-man outside my window and fun fact the crowds filmed on the street here were not extras they were just people who were amazed at seeing a comic book character climbing up one of the most famous buildings in the world man you've got to love those 1970s safety regulations for stuntmen so people make fun of these effects while they're perfectly okay with tobey maguire turning into a cartoon but the stunts performed on the first episode of the second season the captive tower were my favorite of the series the plot of this episode was basically the cloud of die hard a group of thieves trying to steal a million dollars from a high-tech building and the acting here is good all around in this episode although there is one guy whose character was in love with the sophistication of the building's computer system however it comes off more like she hasn't made a sound i asked her not to we can do whatever we want now and she won't make any protest ever yes [Music] she's one of a kind um buddy should i call someone do you need to be left alone you can revise the process of course i can she doesn't know how to say no to me you see the more sophisticated the lady the more vulnerable she is to someone who knows it well and we've spent a lot of time together jesus this show was weird but the main scene i love from this episode is when spidey saves one of the thieves lives after he's dangling from a window cleaner scaffold it's amazing to watch mostly because of the first person camera shots and i am 99 sure the fear in that stunt man's face was 99 real the stuntman who played spider-man was a former trapeze artist named fred wah who actually developed the helmet camera that he used for these stunts and other point of view shots which left me so anxious i actually had to pause the episode and go take a breather hammond says that he was only spider-man for about 20 percent of the time so kind of like how lou ferrigno portrayed the hulk and bill bixby betrayed bruce banner i guess you could say that nicholas hammond was peter parker while fred wah was spider-man and funnily enough there has been a lot of confusing information about whether or not this spider-man show and the incredible hulk show were planning a crossover together according to an interview with nick hammond in sfx magazine he and bill bixby used to talk on the phone quite a bit and one day bixby proposed to him an idea for a spider-man incredible hulk tv movie which would supposedly feature spidey wearing his famous black outfit but universal lied by saying that ferrigno was not available to play the hulk at the time due to his work on hercules while ferrigno said that he was never actually asked so it was obviously a rights dispute on who would get more money universal or colombia and so the spidey hulk crossover went nowhere however while researching this episode i listened to another interview with hammond on the comic book central podcast where he said that there was talk with him and bixby while the show was still on the air of doing a crossover but it did not happen because of bixby's death but bill bixby died in 1993 which would make this clearly impossible so which version is true was hammond just misremembering possibly personally i like the universal versus columbia version of that story better it just seems cooler and if you get a chance by the way listen to that nicholas hammond episode of the comic book central podcast he has got some great anecdotes so season 2 introduced some major changes to the cast captain barbara was dropped and we were introduced to julie masters played by ellen bry a rival photographer and love interest to peter but the one ridiculous change was the new personality for jay jonah jameson which was um well give you five minutes at the most your honor peter parker is an honorable and honest man [Laughter] but the season two episodes were still pretty good with the two-part series finale the chinese web being repackaged as a third film named spider-man the dragons challenge which was again shown in theaters overseas and i can see why because this is a great episode with guest star appearances by rosalind chao who many of you may know as keiko on star trek the next generation and even ted danson in one of his first gigs now many spider-man fans have issues about the faithfulness of the show to its source material there's no uncle ben ant-mate isn't really in the show all that much plus the belt and the wristbands i mean come on but if you compare it to the incredible hulk which i know has more fans i think that the spider-man show is way more fateful than the hulk show was for one thing it featured the spider tracer i mean when you disregard the bell and the bulky web shooters this costume is actually more faithful to the comics than a lot of other adaptations but people always focus on either the belt or the eyes on his costume which had to be designed that way so they wouldn't fog up after all walking on the edge of 50-story buildings with fogged-up eyewear is practically a death sentence also i understand why people hate his belt but hey spider-man had a belt in the comics granted it was under his costume but still another common complaint is the lack of villains in the show but let's be realistic can you tell me what spider-man villains you could have had on a 70s tv show not dr octopus that was nearly impossible even in the sam raimi movies green goblin i would personally argue that no one's gotten that character right i could only really think of two craven the hunter and possibly mysterio if you want to take elite with me here the episode called the kirkwood haunting is kind of similar to spider-man's latest movie far from home as it involves a criminal using a special effects crew to fool a widow out of her money so yeah you could say that's mysterio also there's even an episode where spider-man fights a clone of himself which is straight out of the comics but the fans were not the only ones complaining about the show's direction years later stan lee said that he argued with the producer of the show daniel r goodman and thought that the show was too juvenile but decades later goodman said that it was actually the other way around it was goodman who wanted to ground the character in reality while stan lee wanted to make the show more like a comic book on tv but regardless cbs pulled the plug on the show as it could not find an audience due to the network always moving the show's time slot around cbs's theory was that if they aired spider-man behind different hit shows it would get higher ratings the problem was that there was no real advertising back then so no one would know that the show was gonna air some people say that this was deliberate as cbs was scared that they would become known as the superhero network they were airing the incredible hulk and wonder woman on a regular schedule shazam and isis was on saturday mornings not to mention the captain america and dr strange tv movies huh they feared being labeled a superhero tv network man i wonder where i've heard that one before so again we ask should this show come back should there be a new live-action spider-man tv show well probably not because if the spider-man movies have taught us anything it's that spidey should always be on the big screen i think maybe moz morales could possibly work as a one division like limited series but i don't know that just wouldn't feel right i think the better question to ask is why this show is not on any streaming services or blu-ray or even dvd as of this recording you cannot find the show anywhere except on vhs tapes bootlegs or maybe youtube i just do not understand marvel's continued method of trying to bury their shape whether it's the spider-man show or roger corman's fantastic four movie which had its negatives bought and burned by aviarad to avoid it tarnishing the brand i always say that you shouldn't hide from your mistakes you should stand by them sometimes even great marvel shows are either out of print or only released overseas on dvd such as marvel super heroes or the 1960's spider-man cartoon but thankfully we've been getting lucky lately as some of these shows have become available for streaming on disney plus such as spider woman iron man and the spider-man animated series from the 90s and there are rumors of the 1970s amazing spider-man show finally getting some kind of us release one can only hope but i speak as one fan who hopes that we will once again see bad teeth stupid fights and horrible 1970s fashion choices brought back to the marvel universe [Music] wow [Music] [Music] [Music] i'm jesse shade speaking on behalf of david arroyo for joeblow.com and thank you for watching our show if you like what you see please subscribe to our jobless videos channel tell all your friends who like the sword content and turn on the bell to receive notifications for all of our latest videos we are an independent company that appreciates all of your support and we will see you next time for the next installment of gone but not forgotten [Music] you

Channel: JoBlo Originals

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Keywords: joblo videos, joblo, wtf happened to, wtf happened to this celebrity, wtf happened to this movie, wtf, the best movie you never saw, awfully good movies, the amazing spider man tv series, the amazing spider man tv series 1977, spider man tv show, spider man tv series, nicholas hammond spiderman, nicholas hammond, gone but not forgotten, peter parker, the incredible hulk tv series, bill bixby, lou ferrigno hulk, spiderman, spider man, mcu, marvel comics, spider-man, 1977

Id: ZYdI2g_dqAw

Length: 22min 44sec (1364 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 24 2021