
CBS-TV released THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN as a TV movie back in 1977– it was a combination of being a faithful adaption of the Spider-Man comics and a TV Cop show like STARSKY & HUTCH.
The show featured Peter Parker, a news photographer played by Nicholas Hammond who looked the part but was perhaps 10 years too old for the role. I don’t think Peter was a high school kid in this series and it’s been so long since I’ve seen the Pilot Movie I don’t even remember if Uncle Ben is in it to be killed due to Spider-Man’s casual attitude towards criminals at the time.
The costume is what sold it– it was just close enough to be accurate and just off enough to be interesting. As kids we would make our own Spider-Man masks and learned the art of silk screening to add the webs. The eyes were a challenge, at first we used white t-shirts for the eyes but it made visibility virtually zero– we eventually figured out how to insert mirrored sunglasses into the mask (I bet my Mom was thrilled when she found her empty frames at some point).
It was a fun show that sadly didn’t include any villains and suffered the cliche of many mid 70s cop shows with grizzled Police Officials and cardboard supporting characters, but I tuned in whenever the show was on– and that was the other challenge- the show never had a time slot– it would just suddenly appear in TV Guide so it never found it’s audience.
Lately the series has been getting some respect in terms of merchandizing including a very expensive action figure from Hot Toys in Hong Kong. The series and the pilot film have never had a full release– there were a few VHS tapes back in the day, but to date no DVD or Blu Ray or Streaming appearances. I have the series on a bootleg that I picked up at a comic convention many years ago but if it ever officially got released I would certainly plunk down my hard earned sheckles for it.
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