FOX
was quickly growing in popularity, especially their Fox Kids programming block. X-Men: the Animated Series was a hit, but Marvel Comics, as a business, was steadily
sinking. Needing something to help alleviate the bleeding, Marvel sought to
bring Spider-Man back to television. Enter: Spider-Man:
the Animated Series.
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| Aunt May keeps Peter healthy and strong. |
Spider-Man
followed the adventures of Peter Parker (Christopher Daniel Barnes) after
he was bitten by that fateful irradiated spider and became a super hero. He had
to juggle his heroics with his job as a freelance photographer for The Daily Bugle, attending
Empire State
University, doting over his elderly Aunt May (Linda Gary until her death,
then Julie Bennett), dating the outgoing Mary Jane Watson (Sara Ballantine) and
the snobbish heiress Felicia Hardy (essentially a stand-in for Gwen Stacy who wasn’t used
due to her
inevitable demise, voiced by Jennifer Hale), and being there for his best
friend Harry Osborn (Gary Imhoff). A supporting character from the 1970s
comics, Debra Whitman (Liz Georges), found new life as a research assistant and
girlfriend of bully Flash Thompson (Patrick Labyorteaux). Like X-Men before it, Spider-Man would take stories directly from the comics while adding
its own spin to accommodate their original narrative and available characters.
As well as giving Marvel a
much-needed boost, the series also served as a commercial for a line of toys
produced by Toy Biz,
which was run by series producer Avi
Arad. To produce the series, a new animation studio was created called Marvel Films
Animation, initially located in the New World Studios
building until they had to move locations during production. The entire studio
had to be staffed and equipped as pre-production of the series was underway
under the supervision of Supervising Producer Bob Richardson. Unfortunately,
problems began to arise early on when the original showrunner proved unable to
write the series and left amidst all the politics and disagreements by everyone
involved. John Semper, Jr.
was hired as the new showrunner/head writer, and came in to utter chaos. With
no time left in the schedule to properly prepare the series, Semper had to plot
out the show while simultaneously writing scripts in order to have a finished
product on time. Other writers on the series included comic veterans J.M. DeMatteis, Len Wein and Gerry Conway, as well as Stan Berkowitz, Jim Krieg, Mark Hoffmeier and Ernie Altbacker.
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| Hobgoblin threatens Felicia Hardy. |
The first season had a different
structure than the rest of the series. Arad had pushed for an episodic format
in order to introduce as many characters that could be turned into toys as
possible. Semper, however, favored the structure of the comics where every
issue had its own story while tying into a larger overreaching subplot that would
pay off later down the line. It was because of the toys that the flying
mercenary Hobgoblin
(Mark Hamill) was introduced
before the Green Goblin--the only surviving remnant of Semper’s predecessor--due
to the fact Arad had already initiated production on his figure. Semper was
given free rein to use any characters he wanted, with special consideration
given to certain characters Toy Biz wanted to produce figures of at a given
time. The only ones off-limits were Electro
and Sandman, who were slated
to appear in James Cameron’s
unproduced Spidey
film (and wouldn’t end up appearing until The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and
Spider-Man 3, respectively). Semper, however, ended up creating
his own version of Electro (Phillip
Proctor) as the son of the villainous Red Skull (Earl Boen) in season 4.
Conversely, other shows were not allowed to use Spidey.
 |
| Black-suited Spidey fights Hobgoblin amidst a CGI New York City. |
Although the animation was primarily
handled by Tokyo Movie Shinsha,
most of the preliminary art and design was handled by Marvel Films. Dennis Venizelos
served as background designer and art director, Vladimir Spasojevic as a
production designer and layout artist, Hank Tucker as the head of the
storyboarding crew, Dell Barras
handled the finished character designs and Wayne Schulz oversaw the use of
props. In addition to traditional animation, in order to give the series a more
realistic feel, some backgrounds were computer-generated by studio Kronos to
bring the city to life. The backgrounds were originally intended to be entirely
CGI in order to accurately recreate the city and show off the hours of research
the crew put into it, but budget constraints forced the producers to limit
their use. To deal with the extensive amount of characters the show featured,
especially considering New York would actually feature a background populace
rather than typically empty streets found in other urban cartoons, the series
primarily employed digital coloring rather than traditional ink and paint,
handled by Allyn Conley and Derdad Aghamalian.
 |
| Spider-sense...tingling! |
Spidey’s spider-sense had also
gained an upgrade. In the comics, it was usually represented by a series of
wavy lines around his head, or by half of Peter Parker’s face becoming Spidey’s
mask to the readers. In previous shows, Spidey’s eyes would glow with an
accompanying sound effect to symbolize his early-warning sense. For this
series, Spidey would become darker as a flurry of images would dance around in
the background with an accompanying sound. This was the most visually dynamic
representation of Spidey’s spider-sense to date.
 |
| The Lizard is having a bad day. |
TMS’ acceptance of the full
65-episode order was nothing short of ambitious. Because they were an overseas
animation company, producers couldn’t be there to keep a constant eye on what
was being produced. As a result, problems constantly arose where the animation
didn’t look quite right for a particular scene, necessitating the series’
constant use of stock footage to fill the gaps. Notably, specific actions or
shots of characters talking would be reused, sped up or slowed down to fill in
the space allotted and sort-of match up with the scene’s dialogue. As scripts
became more complex and the yen-to-dollar exchange began costing TMS more,
animation quality progressively degraded throughout the seasons. The preview
episode, “Night of the Lizard,” was often regarded as being the most
visually-stunning episode of the series; showcasing the highest quality
animation out of every episode.
Regardless, Spider-Man: The
Animated Series proved a success when it finally debuted in February of 1995
after airing “Night of the Lizard” as a preview in November. Its opening
montage of various clips from the show went through four different
incarnations, varying in length and integrating footage from newer seasons as
the show progressed. The original opening sequence featured introductory animations
to some of Spidey’s core villains with a noticeably different style than the
rest of the series. A proposed
opening sequence was produced by Shawn Van Briesen, Jim Peebles and James Bauer that was ultimately
rejected, but the shots of Peter’s spider-bite (for the first season) and the
ending bit with Venom were retained for the openings that were used. The
series’ end credits
were superimposed over background images of production artwork. The theme was
composed and sung by Joe Perry from
the band Aerosmith. Interestingly
enough, Aerosmith in its entirety would go on to compose their own version of the
classic 1967
theme for the 2002 Spider-Man movie.
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| Spider-Man teaming up with the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Captain America, Storm, Black Cat and...the Lizard? |
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| A page from the series' style guide. |
The series’ distinctive logo was designed by Todd Klein. Marvel had been using
relatively the same logo for Spidey and all his books since his debut, with
some modifications over the years and the occasional new, brief logo change.
Marvel wanted to change it up while keeping brand recognition, and Klein
obliged them by modifying the logo and giving it heavier outlines. Although
Marvel liked it, a licensee had used Klein’s logo from the 1993 Sabretooth mini-series
on a piece of Spidey merchandise and they liked it better. Klein was asked to revise his
logo to be more in line with Spidey, and it became the official logo for
all comics and merchandising for the next decade; making its official debut on Amazing Spider-Man #395, cover-dated
the same month as Spider-Man’s
preview.
 |
| The Kingpin controls all he surveys. |
Along with the familiar Spidey origin (with his tenure as a TV star
simplified to remaining a wrestler until Uncle Ben’s [Brian Keith] death), all of
Spidey’s supporting cast made an appearance; including his boss, J. Jonah
Jameson (Ed Asner, in a bit of stunt casting harkening back to his Lou Grant role
from The Mary Tyler Moore Show
and his own show),
Jonah’s right-hand man Robbie Robertson (Rodney Saulsberry), and his current
comics secretary Glory Grant (voiced by Nell Carter, although there were plans
for the original, Betty Brant,
to appear on the series that went so far as to produce a character model sheet).
Kingpin (Roscoe Lee Browne), a ruthless businessman who also controlled all the
crime in the city, was introduced as the series’ puppet master; directing many
of the events from behind the scenes in his headquarters inside the Chrysler
Building (it should be noted that while Kingpin has become more known as a Daredevil
villain, he began as one of Spidey’s). The aforementioned Felicia Hardy, who
was introduced in
the comics as already being the cat burglar The Black Cat, was changed into
a wealthy girl of means in order to contrast Mary Jane and make the character
more interesting. In fact, her alter-ego wouldn’t be introduced until season 4
and was given abilities through the Super Soldier serum that created Captain
America (David Hayter).
 |
| The Insidious Six: Chameleon, Doctor Octopus, Scorpion, Mysteriou, Shocker and Rhino. |
The series also introduced all of Spidey’s most well-known villains,
including The
Lizard, the alter-ego of Dr. Curt Connors (Joseph Campanella) upon using a
lizard-based serum to regrow his lost arm; big game hunter Sergei Kravenhoff,
aka Kraven the Hunter (Gregg Berger), who in this
iteration was driven to violent tendencies through a special serum; the
mechanical-armed Dr. Otto Octavius, aka Doctor Octopus (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.); the
master of illusion Quentin Beck, aka Mysterio
(Berger); the Scorpion (Martin Landau & Richard Moll), who was
small-time crook Mac Gargan until Jonah paid to have him given a super suit and
mutated with scorpion DNA; the shape-shifting Chameleon, who was kept mute in
his normal form and changed appearances via an image-capturing belt buckle; and
Venom, a living symbiotic
costume from space that bonded with Peter’s photography rival Eddie Brock (Hank Azaria) after Spidey
rejected it.
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| Pre-Twilight, Felicia found Morbius' new vampire state more off-putting than sexy. |
Semper still had a strict edict
against using season-long story arcs, however he snuck one into the second
season anyway. By the time anyone noticed, it was too late to change course and
the season went out as planned. All episodes in the second season received the
“Neogenic Nightmare” prefix, followed by the actual episode title, and focused
on a variety of mutations. Spidey’s powers were mutating, which led him on a
hunt for a cure and a ratings-grabbing guest-appearance by the X-Men (all voiced by their X-Men actors, although their appearances
differed slightly due to the different animation studios). ESU student Michael Morbius (Nick Jameson) accidentally
transformed himself into a living vampire using a device called the Neogenic
Recombinator, although this version, due to standards and practices, absorbed
plasma from victims through suckers on his hands rather than drank blood in
typical vampire fashion. A mystical Tablet of Time served to turn Kingpin’s
primary rival Silvermane (Jeff Corey) into an infant (Leigh-Allyn Baker), while also
giving the aged Adrian Toomes the technology to absorb others’ youth to become
the high-flying Vulture
(Eddie Albert). Peter
Parker’s wardrobe was also changed to make him cooler and less-dated as the
series went on; swapping out his white green-striped shirt for a red shirt
under a jacket.
 |
| The Green Goblin kidnaps Mary Jane for a final confrontation. |
The continuing success of the series
allowed Semper more freedom, and he continued his season-long story arcs
unabated. Season 3’s “Sins of the Fathers” saw Norman Osborn (Neil Ross,
reprising his role from Spider-Man and Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends)
finally become the Green Goblin. Kingpin’s son Richard Fisk (Jameson) was
introduced and immediately began causing legal problems for Peter Parker and
eventually Robbie on behalf of his new acquaintance, albino gangster Tombstone (Dorian Harewood). Of course,
when there’s legal problems about, it’s probably a good idea to hire a lawyer;
leading to the appearance of blind lawyer Matt Murdock and his alter ego Daredevil
(Edward Albert, Jr.). The sociopathic
spawn of Venom’s symbiote, Carnage (Scott Cleverdon), also made his
debut, albeit a bit toned down from his comic counterpart to comply with
Saturday morning rules. Iron Man
(Robert Hays), fresh off the
conclusion of his own
series, made his first two of three appearances on the show along with War Machine (James Avery, reprising his role
from Iron Man’s first season). Season
4’s “Partners in Danger” saw Spidey teaming up with the likes of Kraven, Black
Cat and Blade the Vampire Hunter
(J.D. Hall).
 |
| The marriage of Peter Parker and the Mary Jane clone. |
Season 5 was the culmination of the
ongoing stories, broken up into several smaller arcs rather than a single story
across the whole season. “Six Forgotten Warriors” introduced several Golden Age
characters from Marvel’s time as Timely Comics, including the Black Marvel (Paul Winfield), Miss America (Kathy Garver), the Whizzer (Walker Edmiston) and the Thunderer (Hansford Rowe), as well as
Captain America and Red Skull. “The Return of Hydro-Man” was a two-parter that
revealed Mary Jane, who had returned after disappearing into a portal with the
Green Goblin at the end of the third season, was a clone made from ex-boyfriend
Hydro-Man’s (Rob Paulsen) DNA, and that the
real one was still lost somewhere (as a way to keep Spidey from “getting the
girl” and undo the season-opening wedding episode). “Secret Wars” was a
three-episode adaptation of the mini-series
of the same name, which featured return appearances by Captain America and
Iron Man, and the show’s debut of the Fantastic Four (only Quinton Flynn reprised his role
as the Human
Torch from the second season of the recently-cancelled series
as Semper really wasn’t a fan of that show). Originally, all the X-Men were to
be featured again, but due to time constraints they were cut out of the final
story. Storm was chosen to represent them as her original actress from their
series, Iona Morris,
was the only one based in Los Angeles where Spider-Man was recorded (X-Men
was recorded in Canada). Hulk and She-Hulk were also supposed to
appear, but couldn’t due to their own series running
on rival network UPN at the time
(Semper did go on to write two episodes for that series).
 |
| The legion of Spider-Men gather to take on Spider-Carnage (bottom). |
The final two-part episode, “Spider
Wars,” was the culmination of Semper’s plans for the series, and what the
precognitive Madame Web (Joan Lee, wife of Stan Lee) had been training Spidey for
throughout the course of the series. In these episodes, Spidey was teamed with
several other versions of himself from various dimensions to stop another
version that had
bonded with the Carnage symbiote from destroying all reality with the
goblins Hob and Green. Amongst the Spider-Men were one who kept his extra
arms from his mutation, a wealthy version
in the one-off armor from Web of Spider-Man #100, one wearing Doc Ock’s mechanical
arms, clone Ben Reilly
as the Scarlet Spider (Spider-Carnage wore Ben’s uniform from his brief run as
Spidey in the late 90s, which is where the character first appeared),
and an
actor portraying the character created by Stan Lee. The show’s Spidey was
taken for a face-to-face with his creator, Stan Lee (playing himself), before
being allowed to resume his search for Mary Jane. Incidentally, this story
featured the only series appearance of Gwen Stacy (Mary Kay Bergman) as the fiancée
of the wealthy Spider-Man.
 |
| The mysterious Madame Web. |
While Semper had always known how
the series was going to end, he left it open for future installments if so
ordered. Unfortunately, additional episodes were not forthcoming. Margaret Loesch, head
of Fox Kids, was often at odds with Arad and used the series as a weapon
against him. Production ended and Marvel Films closed up shop following their
sale, along with parent company New World Entertainment, to News Corporation/Fox. Until Ultimate Spider-Man debuted
in 2012, the series had the most episodes of any Spider-Man-based series. As of
this writing, it still holds the title for the longest-running show at five
seasons. The series was nominated in 1996 for an Image Award for “Outstanding
Animated/Live-Action/Dramatic Youth or Children’s Series/Special” while Semper
won an Annie Award in 1995 for “Best
Individual Achievement for Writing in the Field of Animation” for the episode
“Day of the Chameleon.”
As mentioned, the series was heavily
influenced by the toys,
and the toys themselves came to be influenced by the series. Six waves of
figures were made under the “Animated Series” banner before subsequent series
began receiving their own themed names and accessories. Although not as
directly tied into the show as the first six waves, appearances of certain
characters on the show led to consumer demand for their inclusion; including Dr. Strange, Captain America,
and Electro. 10” versions of these figures were also produced, as were small steel
figure two-packs. In 1995, McDonald’s
featured a set of 8 toys
in their Happy Meals with a combination of full figures and vehicles.
 |
| Spider-Man Adventures featured a simpler style compared to other comics. |
The first season was adapted into
comic form as Spider-Man Adventures for the first 13 issues of the series,
with the first four later reprinted in Kellogg’s Froot Loops Mini-Comics #1-4. The final two issues began
telling original stories set in the animated universe, and the comic was
rebooted and retitled as The Adventures of Spider-Man for an additional 12 issues of original
tales. In 1996, Toy Biz released several CD-Rom
comics that featured several full comics,
clips from the cartoon, and narration by Barnes on the Spidey version. Barnes,
as Spidey, also instructed users on how to navigate around the discs and their
content.
Along with a wide assortment of
merchandise including clothing, stickers
and playing
cards, in 1995 Ralston released
a limited-edition
cereal based on the series. It had web pieces with spider-tracer, pumpkin
bomb, camera and Kingpin marshmallows. It also came with a set of trading cards to
collect, a different one in each box. Chef
Boyardee released cans of Spider-Man pasta, which had webs, his face and
Spidey leaping as shapes, and Betty
Crocker produced themed Fruit Roll-Ups. Barnes
reprised his role for the commercials, which featured similar but cruder
animation in comparison to the series.
 | |
| Spider-Man's card from the 1995 Fleer Ultra series. |
Spider-Man
was represented in trading card form. For the 1995 Fleer Ultra
Spider-Man set, characters who appeared on the show received a television
in place of their first appearance cover on the backs of their cards and a
factoid about the show. The series was also featured in the 1995 Fox Kids trading card
set with other network shows and as part of the 1996 Marvel Vision
set along with the other three early 90s Marvel cartoons.
Western Technologies released a video game based on the show
through Acclaim
for Sega Genesis and LJN for Super
Nintendo. Both versions featured the same story and most of the same
characters, although the SNES version had additional characters and levels.
While it featured designs used on the show, the game did include characters who
had yet (or never did) appear on it; including the Fantastic Four as
collectible helpers (two years before “Secret Wars”). Knowledge
Adventure released Spider-Man Cartoon Maker, which
allowed users to create their own movies using settings and animated sprites from
the show. Barnes provided narration, while an example story retelling Spidey’s origin
was written by Semper and directed by Joseph Adler.
 |
| The United Kingdom release of the complete first season. |
Before recently, Spider-Man was the only pre-2000 Marvel series
to receive regular
DVD releases by Walt
Disney Studios Home Entertainment, which were conversions of their
previously released VHS
collections. Most of the sets featured four episodes with a similar theme,
and occasionally a bonus episode from the 1967 series. The release of Daredevil vs. Spider-Man also featured
the 1990s Fantastic Four episode “And
a Blind Man Shall Lead Them.” In Canada, the “Mutant Agenda” DVD was a re-issue
of the 1997 Marvel-New World/Telegenic VHS and contained two bonus 1990s Iron Man episodes. “The Hobgoblin” was a
re-release of the 2002 VHS that contained the two-part introduction of the
character. In the United Kingdom, Sweden and Germany, Clear Vision Ltd. released all five
seasons and a complete collection between 2009 and 2011. Although still to be
released as a whole in North America, the series was made available on streaming
sites and on Marvel.com. In 2019, it became one of the launch titles for the
streaming service Disney+.
At 2014’s Comikaze Expo, Barnes, Ballantine, Hale,
Imhoff, Saulsberry, Berger and Labyorteaux, along with Semper and a
pre-recorded message from Asner, gathered together to celebrate the show’s 20th
anniversary with a panel. There, Semper announced a crowdfunded animated
series for 2015 called War of the Rocket Men featuring the voices of those
mentioned, and Larry Mandley.
Semper also launched Cartoonspiderman.com,
a website devoted to the production of Spider-Man,
and a Facebook
group where he often delves into stories about it. It was there that Semper
laid
to rest the long-standing rumors that his show was under heavy network
censorship (such as denying Spidey the ability to punch anyone), which arose
from an off-handed comment in an interview about some of the sillier notes the
network did supply (a standard occurrence in animation). Semper, who
knew from experience what would fly in children’s animation, simply chose to
keep the violence minimal and have Spidey find other ways to beat his foes.
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| Black Cat and Spdey from the 2000 Spider-Man game. |
Following the series, Barnes made a
return to the character (although alternate reality versions) several times in
video games. He voiced Spider-Man Noir
in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Spider-Man
2099 in Spider-Man: Edge of Time, and the
black costume and Superior
versions of the character in Marvel Heroes. Hale, also appearing
in other Spidey projects, returned to her role as Black Cat for the 2000 video
game Spider-Man.
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