Live Action Spider-Men Part 1: The Electric Company

“Oh, Spider-Man. Where did you come from, Spider-Man? Nobody knows who you are!”

They especially didn’t in his first live action appearance from the mid-seventies on a television program called The Electric Company. And those quoted lines above are from the theme to “Spidey Super Stories,” where our hero faces many “challenges.”So, sit on the top of a chair and join me as we begin our week long journey through the wall crawler’s various live action adaptations with part 1 of “Live Action Spider-Men.”

First let’s answer this question, “What is ‘The Electric Company?'” Well, “The Electric Company” was a children’s educational, sketch comedy television show that ran on PBS from 1971 through 1977 and was produced by the Children’s Television Workshop, now named Sesame Workshop after its most successful show. The cast notably included a young Morgan Freeman for its entire run and Bill Cosby for a while in its earlier pre-Spider-Man years. Although cancelled in 1977, PBS continued to rerun the program until 1985. The show was relaunched in 2009 and ran until 2011. Okay, now that that we all know a bit about “The Electric Company,” it’s time to move on to our favorite web head himself.

In “Spidey Super Stories,” the series of skits in which our titular hero appeared, Spider-Man was played by Danny Seagren and was the first live action portrayal of the character. The skits would involve Spidey usually stumbling upon a situation and then in a “Dora the Explorer” like move turn to the screen and and speak. Only instead of trying to teach children Spanish, like in the aforementioned  “Dora the Explorer,” Spidey would only communicate through word balloons, an attempt to get children reading, while everyone else spoke normally; albeit after reading the word balloons themselves.

And while the skits may have starred Spider-Man, none of the web head’s supporting cast joined him the skits. In fact, inthis adaptation we only see Spider-Man in costume, even on his day off, he sits on top of a chair still in costume.

Why would you sit like that?

As well none of his rogue’s gallery ever appeared; although a villain named Sandman did appear, he was not the familiar Spider-Man foe. Instead this Spider-man fought the like of the Prankster, the Spoiler, the Wall and once helped a lost yeti find his way home.

I love this Spider-Man and his goofy short stories. Who cares if he lacks villains or other recurring characters, he’s fun and really that’s all that matters to me. Plus they’ve got a young Morgan Freeman in them, and, I mean come on, who doesn’t enjoy Morgan Freeman.