Cancelled Too Soon: The Amazing Spider-Man (1977)

Our ongoing look back at sci fi / fantasy TV shows that were cancelled way too soon or pilots that never made it to series.

In the late 70’s, CBS had found success with the comic book-based shows Wonder Woman (which picked up after the cancellation by ABC) and The Incredible Hulk and decided to dip into that well again with a live-action adaptation of Marvel’s Spider-Man.  Like the Hulk’s show, Spider-Man began on TV as a well-rated television movie then continued as a mid-season replacement series.  Also like The Hulk, the Spider-Man series borrowed the basic origin story from the comics, but had very little connection to the source material beyond that.  The first-year episodes delivered decent enough ratings that CBS decided to greenlight the shows for a second season.  But the network execs apparently had a change of heart about the show at some point because they ordered only seven episodes and aired those sporadically across the season.  The episodes still pulled decent numbers, but the show had high production costs and also skewed to a younger audience, not scoring as well in the all-important 18-49 demographic.  In addition, CBS apparently wanted to avoid being tagged as the “comic book network” and ended up cancelling Spider-Man after its shortened second season run.

While the show may never count as classic television, it was good fun for its day and did a good enough job with the Spider-Man character.  It does deliver a large dose of 70’s cheese and the special effects (which seemed impressive at the time) do not hold up as well.  But it still counts as a fun superhero adaptation and I always liked Nicholas Hammond as Peter Parker.  It would have been nice if they had brought in some of the other characters from the comics, and maybe done a cross-over with The Incredible Hulk.  But neither the latter show nor Wonder Woman had done much in the way of mining their source material, so it is no surprise Spider-Man did not either.  CBS would also air pilots for Dr. Strange (more on that one at this link) and Captain America, but neither would continue as a series.  And by the end of 1979, that network’s superhero purge left only The Incredible Hulk still on television.  Surprisingly, the Spider-Man series has yet to make it to DVD, but you can catch episodes on YouTube from time to time.  And it’s worth giving them a look to enjoy a fun 1970’s superhero series that could be cheesy at times, but had plenty of potential.

Aired: CBS, 1977-79, 2 Seasons Totaling 13 Episodes

Developed By: Alvin Boretz

Starring:  Nicholas Hammond, Michael Pataki, Robert F. Simon, Ellen Bry



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