The Amazing Spider-Man

For me, it was the first Spiderman. And that does it, like many childhood impressions, the best. Sure, after decades, it has the mark of its period and that is fair to be. But the seduction remains. It could be defined as nostalgia but it works. Because Nicholas Hammond gives a nice performance, because the special effects are naive, because CGI is unborn and the script is so easy than it becomes a delight after a hard work day. And, sure, because zou are part, in same measure, from serie. For memories. And for inner child.

Yes, it's campy. Yes, the acting wasn't very good and the scripts were dull. Yes, the special effects are *very* dated.

It doesn't matter. "Amazing Spider-Man" is one of those time capsules that perfectly captures late 1970s action TV. It was funky, it was campy, it was cheesy, and it was great.

Sure, it could have been better. Given time, the series could have hit its groove and easily been as good as the other Marvel TV series of the day, "The Incredible Hulk." Legend has it this show was cancelled because of low ratings, but I heard CBS both wouldn't commit to a consistent timeslot, and they didn't want to be known as the Superhero Network (they had "Hulk," "Wonder Woman," and showed the hideous "Captain America" and "Dr. Strange" movies). They could have had a real winner...

i can remember when i first watched it. i thought wow, the real spider man. of course i was like 5 years old, but the wonderment that i felt at watching a real person in a spider man costume stopping the bad guys with his spider powers...i would love to see it again. but, since Stan lee and the majority of people didn't like it, we'll probably never see a DVD release of it. I wish i knew a way to find them on VHS or meg...anything. i'd love to watch them again. Stan, for peter's sake, some of us enjoyed the old series, let us have them again. And for future reference, Stan, if you need any help with casting future releases of Marvel movies, let me know.

Just reading why this show got canceled makes me rather steamed. This was a favorite of mine as a kid and I always watched it when it came on no matter how many times I saw the episode. Sure the effects were not great, but they were also not horrible either. They did a fairly good job with the costume and it had the nice 70's vibe to it that is always enjoyable to see and hear as the music was also very 70's. It did not really have any villains from the comics, but then most comic book live show adaptations had none to very few actual super villains from the comics. Spidey's powers were a bit different here too, he had his Spidey sense and he could climb walls, but he was not nearly as strong as the Spider-man of the comics. He was super strong though as I do remember an episode where he broke into a room by breaking the door knob off, he just was not the car hurler that the one from the comic book can be. The show was set in Los Angelos so there were not as many buildings to swing from, but they did okay with the web. It is nice that this show actually has the web shooters and not organic shooters of the movie. I love the movies, but part of me wishes they would start over and do the more smarty pants Spidey that has the mechanical web shooters. This show had a good star as Peter Parker and he was okay as Spider-man, it is nice to see a Spidey who does not basically live in the slums like he does in the movies. Neither this show nor the movie though has a Spider-man that is quick with the insult like the one in the comic. Still, this show was fun without being as corny as the Batman show.

This series ran over two very short seasons. It consists of 3 double episodes (90 min; the pilot, the first episode and the last episode) and 9 single episodes (45 min).

The production values are very low by modern standards. Climbing scenes that were clearly created with the help of horizontal walls and weird hand-to-hand combat sometimes even remind me of the old Republic cliffhanger serials. But for a 1970s TV series this is normal. This one clearly had a much smaller budget than Batman (1966), for example.

For fans of the comic or of the Spider-Man films, it is important to understand that this is not an adaptation of the original story so much as an independent detective TV series that is inspired by it and borrows selectively from it.

In this series, Peter Parker is a university student as well as a freelance photographer. MJ does not exist, freeing Peter up for the romance of the day in his dual roles as himself and as Spider-Man. Newspaper boss J. Jonah Jameson is much more likeable than usual. In fact, he is quite similar to Bewitched's Larry Tate, and in the pilot is even played by the same actor. Moreover, his sassy secretary Rita really knows how to handle this choleric. Also, police chief Captain Barbera plays an important recurring role. Perhaps most important: There are no supervillains here, just more or less spectacular criminal cases.

Even for those of us without childhood memories of this series, it may still be worth a look. I enjoyed it overall, although I really found the pacing too slow.