The Final Episode #47: Spider-Man (1967 - 1970)

 

The 1960s were one hell of a decade. So many things happened in that short ten year span. I don't think we will ever have a decade just like that. From Civil Rights to the Beatles it all happened in the 1960s. It was a time of uproar and Batman with Adam West. You could probably fill just one history book with stuff that happened in the 1960s and I'm not talking just goofy pop culture stuff this blog talks about. You could definitely fill a book talking about 1960s pop culture and such. I have a weird connection to the 1960s and 1970s because TV back in my day was well TV and not streaming. You'd watch Mister Ed or Dennis the Menace because you broke the head of your Donatello figure and had to wait at least a while for your dad to fix it. You needed Donatello for that serious TMNT/Real Ghostbusters team up you had going on! Then your dog eats your Real Ghostbusters and you are really sad. That's what actually happened to my Real Ghostbusters a dog we had got in there and ate them. I was very sad. We ended up giving that dog away. I think I was scared of it. Yes this has me talking about the importance of the 1960s and a dog eating my Real Ghostbusters. You can clearly tell I wasn't paying attention to the teacher when we were learning how to create a good opening paragraph.

When I heard that Paul Soles had left to meet his maker. I knew I had to talk about this show and it's Final Episode on my very popular blogs very popular column of sorts (I feel like I'm in the New Yorker whenever I talk about columns but they talk about boring shit and I talk about The Identical which is clearly cooler!). I'm honestly surprised I'm not on the LAST Spider-Man show that they've put out by now. Which I think is Ultimate Spider-Man? or is that still running? It does not look very good and I'm still angry at Marvel for canning Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Anyway Paul Soles was MY Spider-Man (he also voiced Hermey the gay elf from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer). Whenever I read a Spider-Man comic I still hear his voice. It's pretty wild. Paul was a very memorable voice actor and worked in Canadian movies and tv up until even the 2010s. Pretty wild.

Now for the history behind the show. It was a joint product between America and Canada. All the voice actors were Canadian (Paul Kligman played the best J. Jonah Jameson and I don't want to hear otherwise). The company that did the first season was Grantray-Lawrence Animation. They were an animation company from Canada that lasted from 1954 and 1968...yeah not very long. The only noteworthy thing they really ever did was the Marvel cartoons, before going bankrupt and having Krantz animation (who co-produced the stuff with them) for seasons 2 and 3 of Spider-Man. Oh and a young hooligan named Ralph Bashki worked on season 3. Which was the weirdest season. There's a clear connection between those two things. The show ended in 1970.

This was a show that I HAD to see every time it came on. Every single damn time. As with every other Spider-Man cartoon. I would be pissed every time we had to go clothes shopping or some other shithole place. If you're bringing me out when this show was on it better be close and that place better have a television. I'm pretty sure this goofy show with its janky animation (which is used again and again and again) was what made me a fan of Spider-Man. It's still a lot of fun to watch these days. Even if its to watch for how weird and ridiculous it is. I have no where else to put this but one time when we went to Blockbuster and I ended up wanting to rent a Spider-Man tape. I think my dad was angry about this because the tape was like 5.99 to rent (Seriously when you could rent 7 movies for 7 days for 7.77 at other places I can't argue with him. Those places gave you a deal and still got the new releases I'm surprised Blockbuster still made it here in Newfoundland. I guess a brand name works on people). I did get to rent the tape and I think my dad was angry. It was not a very good story but I felt like telling it anyway. Still I'm surprised my dad cared about this because my parents would rent the same movies for me and my sister like 8,000 times and not buy them outright. 

 So you can tell from the 4 paragraphs of me going on about a lot of stuff that this Final Episode is not very good. It's pretty bad in fact. It's a clip show and Spider-Man doesn't end up talking to the news reporters on Meet the Press or the cast of The Fugitive all animated like. Nope he talks to a kid who wants to go to Podunk. I guess he thought "this podunk little town" was a real name of a town?. Spider-Man falls into a boxcar and they talk about the kid wanting to be a hero. Which means clips from better episodes. One starring Mysterio. Like at least half of that episode. No I'm not joking. They also two random clips from season 3 which much have been really recent. Kinda weird I guess but not weird as fucking Webster meeting Worf. Seriously you gotta up your game if you are gonna go out on a fucking clipshow you lazy bastards.

FINAL VERDICT: I will talk about the other Spider-Man shows because they actually end on an actual story and not HEY LETS REUSE CLIPS BABY. I didn't like clip shows (except for that episode of The Simpsons with Troy McClure) when I was a kid and I don't like them now (except for that episode of Webster where he meets WORF of all people). I think this might actually be the worst clip show because at least others tried a BIT harder to put in clips from previous episodes. And they didn't put in any clips from the actual season that was running on tv at the time, but yes expect the Final Episode for every Spider-Man cartoons, even the ones that ran for 25 episodes. Just to annoy portnoyd.