The Amazing Spider-Man (TV series)

In the 1977 series, Spider-Man's eyes were visible through his mask

During the mid-1970s, Marvel Comics publisher and Spider-Man's co-creator Stan Lee, sold CBS the rights to produce a prime time live-action Spider-Man series, to be made by producer Daniel R. Goodman. Actor Nicholas Hammond was cast in the lead role, though all of Spider-Man's stunts were performed by the series's stunt coordinator, Fred Waugh.[2] Lee and Goodman fiercely clashed over the direction of the series during the initial production.[2] Lee once said in an interview for Pizzazz magazine that he felt the series was "too juvenile".[3]

The series began as a backdoor pilot: a 90-minute movie known simply as Spider-Man which was broadcast on CBS TV network in September 1977, which was theatrically released internationally.[4] In it, Peter Parker (as an intrepid university student) gains super powers after being bitten by a radioactive spider. He uses those powers to get a job at the Daily Bugle, and to stop a con man who is covertly using mind control for personal gain.

The pilot garnered a 17.8 rating with a 30 share - CBS' highest rating for the entire year.[2] However, citing concern over the pilot's relatively weak ratings in the lucrative adult-demographic (ages 18–49),[2] CBS picked up the series for only a limited, five-episode order (those 5 episodes were aired in April and May 1978, at the tail-end of the 1977–78 TV season). This run of episodes debuted very well, with the first obtaining a 22.8 rating with 16.6 million viewers, making it the best-rated program for the week on CBS, and the eighth-best-rated program for the week, overall.[5] The series ended up being the 19th-highest-rated show of the entire season, but CBS was reluctant to commit to giving the show a regular/fixed time slot for the 1978-79 season,[6] as the series was expensive to produce[7] and continued to underperform with older audiences.[2]

CBS took the more cautious approach of airing episodes on a sporadic basis, strategically placing it on the broadcast schedule to deliberately hurt the ratings of specific competing shows, at key times in the TV season (e.g. "sweeps"). Former Six Million Dollar Man producer Lionel Siegel took over production duties for season two, noticeably changing the show in an attempt to grow its adult audience. These changes included dropping the Captain Barbera character; adding the character of Julie Masters as a love interest for Peter; creating more down-to-earth plotlines; and slightly toning-down Spider-Man's superpowers, to make him more accessible to adult viewers.[8]

The second season that consisted of seven episodes aired infrequently throughout the 1978–79 TV season.[9] The series continued to do well in the ratings during its second season.[2] CBS officially cancelled the series soon after the season ended. The chief reason for the cancellation was that CBS feared being perceived as merely a one-dimensional, superficial, "superhero network".[2] It was already airing other live-action superhero series or specials at the time, including The Incredible Hulk, Wonder Woman (which they resurrected after its original network, ABC, canceled it), Captain America, Doctor Strange, and had just ended (in 1977) multi-year runs of live-action Saturday morning series for DC Comics' Captain Marvel and Isis superheroes. Another problem was that in spite of the show's popularity, its most vocal fans were also highly critical of it,[10] due to the season two departures from more comic book-like storylines, and the lack of any recognizable "supervillains" from the Spider-Man comics.

The series yielded the first live-action depictions of Peter Parker's "spider-tracer" tracking/homing devices; they are prominently featured in several episodes throughout the series.

Directors

Shooting Spider-Man at Caltech from "The Curse of Rava".

• Tom Blank
• Cliff Bole
• Michael Caffey
• Dennis Donnelly
• Tony Ganz
• Fernando Lamas
• Joseph Manduke
• Don McDougall
• Ron Satlof
• Larry Stewart
• E.W. Swackhamer

For their release in VHS format, several of the series's episodes were spliced together in pairs. "Night of the Clones and Escort to Danger", "A Matter of State and Photo Finish" and "The Con Caper and The Curse of Rava" were combined and presented as a single movie-length episodes. In order to smooth the jump between the two unrelated stories in each release, the production team filmed new bridging scenes set at the Daily Bugle and inserted them between the content of the two component episodes.[2] These scenes were never broadcast, either in the series's original run or in any reruns.

The pilot and two pairs of episodes were released as movies internationally by Columbia Pictures (following their first character film rights for future films)[4] as Spider-Man, Spider-Man Strikes Back, and Spider-Man: The Dragon's Challenge.[11]

In a 2002 interview with SFX magazine, Nicholas Hammond revealed that there were plans to do an Amazing Spider-Man series reunion film in 1984. The proposal would have had the original cast team-up with the cast of The Incredible Hulk[13] television series (a major hit for CBS), with Hammond appearing in the black Spider-Man costume. According to Hammond, a deal was arranged to have Columbia and Universal Studios co-produce the project. Bill Bixby was going to direct the TV-movie, in addition to reprising the role of David Banner. Universal eventually cancelled the project. Hammond said he was told that Lou Ferrigno was unavailable to reprise his role as the Hulk, because he was in Italy filming Hercules, but in his 2003 autobiography My Incredible Life as the Hulk, Ferrigno stated that he was never contacted about the project, adding that he had recently finished filming Hercules II and that his availability was not an issue.[14]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Amazing Spider-Man (TV series).

• The Amazing Spider-Man at IMDb
• 2002 Nicholas Hammond interview on Spider-Man (2002)