Rating: 
Summary: Great dvd for any spidey fan.
Review: Wow, this was THE ORIGINAL Spider Man cartoon, which came to TV in 1967, only four years after the character was first introduced in the comic books. It was also my favorite cartoon when I was a kid and I'm thrilled to see all the episodes finally available on dvd! In my opinion the episodes right smack in the middle of this series are the best of the bunch, that's where you get all the classic Spidey villains from the comic book (The Green Goblin, The Lizard, Mysterio, Doctor Octopus, Electro, The Rhino, The Vulture, and The Scorpion) showing up for battle. Like most kids at that time, I remember being simply mesmirized by these particular episodes (especially those starring Green Goblin and The Lizard, who I found so wonderfully scary and weird), because they worked so well as kind of a "boiled down", simplified, iconic version of the comic book. All that extraneous teen drama stuff with Mary Jane and Flash Thompson from the books, the stuff you can't relate to when you're under the age of twelve, has been stripped away in favor of sheer "cool-looking good-guy vs. crazy-looking bad-guys" action and suspense. Add to that the unforgettable theme song, the J. Jonah Jameson comedy, and you've got a great show that will have kids' eyes glued to the screen. The later episodes in the series are where it gets weird. The psychadelic, surrealistic art trends of the late sixties are very potent here, with ultra-wacky visuals, and plots which take Spider Man on adventures to other planets, the jungle, and even other dimensions. None of which has anything to do with classic Spidey. Well, whatever, even these episodes have their own, goofy/bizarre, hypnotic appeal. My complaints? Well, there's a lot of technical flaws with the actual animation, but it was there from the start, and all of it went right past me when I first saw these cartoons as a kid, so in a way I can't gripe. I only notice this kind of stuff, now, as a sober-minded adult. I'm referring mainly to problems like, obvious dirt and dust inside the animation cells, technical flaws in the animation, and extremely limited animation - there are about five different shots of spidey doing any given action (swinging on his webs, wall-crawling, etc) and stock footage of these well-animated bits are simply re-used over and over again through out the series anytime they need spidey to perform that action. Again, these are all problems that were present in the first place, they are not flaws with the dvd transfers, and they are all things that will go right over the heads of most spellbound child viewers, just as they went over my head and all my friends' heads. It's only now that we watch these cartoons as adults that we are repeatedly shocked by such obvious technical flubs in the animation. Obviously, the show had a very limited budget which put restrictions on things like re-takes and new footage for repeated actions. But this is nitpicking, when you consider how effectivly entertaining the shows remain, despite the above-mentioned flaws. Bottom line: If you love classic Spidey, or have a kid who does, I highly recommend this great dvd collection.
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