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Featured CED VideoDisc No. 24 - Spring 2002

With the blockbuster Spider-Man movie coming out next month, and two prior Spider-Man productions existing on CED, this seemed like a good choice for the featured CED. The two Spider-Man CED's also originated on television, so I'm using this opportunity to cover the Television Genre with a table of all the CED titles derived from television.

From the images above, it's clear that both these Spider-Man CED's have somewhat similar covers. The first one I acquired was The Amazing Spider-Man, a live-action television movie from which a short-lived TV series was derived. Some time later, I found Spider-Man Cartoons in a row of CED's in a thrift store and almost flipped past it, thinking I already had it at this time long before I came up with a complete list of titles. Not until I flipped the caddy over did I realize this was the classic 1960's cartoon series, as both caddies prominently state "The Amazing Spider-Man" on the front cover.

These two variations of Spider-Man differ rather widely in their villains - an indication of the limits of movie technology in the 1970's. While the Spider-Man cartoon series has fanciful villains like Doctor Octopus and The Green Goblin, the villain in the TV movie is just an ordinary guy in a business suit. It's hard to imagine how they could have pulled off a Dr. Octopus in a movie back in the 70's without looking ridiculous, and other super hero fare like The Incredible Hulk and Wonder Woman likewise did not have any comic book or animation style villains. Even the high budget Superman movie from 1978 had a very pedestrian villain. The one thing they did do fairly effectively in the Spider-Man TV movie was wall crawling, although there wasn't any web swinging to speak of. With the advances in computer-generated graphics the upcoming movie won't suffer from these limitations. The Spider-Man cartoons from the 1960's did contain a full gamut of super villains, and interesting enough, the episode "The Origin of Spider-Man" represents the early work of animator Ralph Bakshi who directed the Lord of the Rings featured CED from a few months ago. "The Origin of Spider-Man" is actually the first episode of the second season of the three-year series, while all other episodes on the disc are from the first season.

Both of these Spider-Man CED's contain subtle references to RCA, as they are set in New York City, where RCA's headquarters were located in the RCA Building. In the TV movie Peter Parker is offering a picture of the base of the RCA Building to Mr. Jameson, and in the cartoon series there appears to be an artistic rendition of the structure. It was on the 49th floor of that building where the first demonstration of the CED system to the technology press took place on March 19, 1975.

The remainder of this CED feature contains pictures of the main characters from both Spider-Man CED's, as well as the table of TV-derived CED titles. When I recently watched the Spider-Man TV movie, I noticed that some of the characters looked familiar, but I couldn't quit place them. With the help of the IMDb I was able to determine where I had seen them in more memorable roles. Below is a list of those roles.

• Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Nicholas Hammond) - played the elder von Trapp son in The Sound of Music
• J.Jonah Jameson (David White) - played Darrin's boss Larry Tate in Bewitched
• Aunt May (Jeff Donnell) - played the flight instructor surrounded by Japanese planes in Tora! Tora! Tora!
• Captain Barbera (Michael Pataki) - played the school principal in Graduation Day
• Monahan (Bob Hastings) - played a similar sidekick role as Lt. Carpenter to Captain Binghamton in McHale's Navy
• Judy Tyler (Lisa Eilbacher) - played the recruit who has trouble with an obstacle course wall in An Office and a Gentleman
• Edward Byron (Thayer David) - played Ben Stokes (1795) and Timothy Stokes (1968) in Dark Shadows

The Amazing Spider-Man
Spider-Man Cartoons

• The Amazing Spider-Man TV Movie in the Internet Movie Database

• Spider-Man Cartoons in the Internet Movie Database

• Spider-Man Cartoons 1960's Theme Song (479K) 

• Spider-Man 2002 Movie Web Site

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• Main Featured CED's Page

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