Monday, June 15, 2015

Rare Treats: Spider-Man On The Move (1981)

Marvel Comics founding father Stan Lee hosts and narrates Spider-Man On The Move, a half-hour special that previewed Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends.

Lee takes us behind the scenes on the making of the show, with interviews with cast & crew, including actors Dan Gilvezan (Spider-Man/Peter Parker), Frank Welker (Iceman/Bobby Drake), and Kathy Garver (Firestar/Angelica Jones). Producer Dennis Marks, a veteran from Filmation, voiced the Green Goblin on the show. Hmmm. Y'think maybe he also contributed some voice work at Filmation back in the day?

Lee would formally join Amazing Friends as series narrator in season 2.





Where Stan screws up is Spidey's animated history, forgetting the 1967-70 ABC series that really started the ball rolling. Then again, Stan's memory was never that good to start with.

Rating: B.

2 comments:

magicdog said...

Never saw this but obviously I should have!! I don't know how I missed it!

You're correct in Stan Lee forgetting about the 1967 cartoon, but that may have been for the benefit of the studio, since the toon was new. It was fun to see the VAs, and seeing a look at the process as it once was. Today it would be very different.

About that sketch of Anjelica (aka Firestar): you do know that it was originally going to be Mary Jane Watson, but when the studio couldn't use Johnny Storm for the team, they created her instead. I don't know why the wroter claimed that story about being afraid of kids committing immolation! It's been established the show couldn't get the rights to use The Human Torch because he was in a different animated production and was embargoed. Still, it worked out for the best.

Oh, and to see Christy Marx! Just three years away from her series, Jem!

hobbyfan said...

Yes, I know Angelica was meant to be Mary Jane. The Storm embargo was actually in re.: the FF toon 3 years earlier. He was supposedly going to be in a movie, I think.