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Spider-Man - The 1967 Classic Collection (6 Volume Set)

Spider-Man - The 1967 Classic Collection (6 Volume Set)

List Price: $59.99
Your Price: $47.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: great web-slingin' fun...
Review: I'm glad I bought this box set. Before, I would buy poor quality videos at conventions. Now, everything is here in one complete collection.
I love the colors, style and especially the jazz tinged rock fusion music. I love the psychedelic watercolor skies, alien green trees and purple killer vines. I love New York being turned upside-down, under-water and inside out. I love buildings falling through their foundations into an underworld ruled by Morlock-like beings.
However, there's no need to repeat the Spidey theme on every single episode. Let the jazz improvs in each story grab more of the sonic spotlight. Also, a few stories are repeated, but under different titles. For example, "Down to Earth" is identical to "Neptune's Nose Cone". As corney, dated and limited as it is, I still enjoy it, no matter how many times they repeat Spidey swingin' through the city. The combination of increasingly eccentric villains, watercolor horizons, and surreal antics (love the movie theater audience's valuables being sucked into the movie screen!)ensures its timeless appeal. I prefer this over today's animation, although I have to admit that the new MTV Spiderman looks pretty decent.
Ralph Bakshi, where are you, man?



Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Courtesy of your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman!
Review: "Spiderman Spiderman! Does whatever a spider can! Spins a web any size! Catches thieves just like flies! Hey Man here comes the Spiderman!" If you can sing that from memory (or the rest of it) you'll like this set of original Spiderman animated adventures from 1967-70. The set includes all the episodes preserved shockingly well! Colors are bright and vibrant, and it looks and sounds awesome. The cartoons began first as 10 minute adventures, then 20 some odd minutes later in the run. J. Jonah Jameson figures prominently, and you see Aunt May every now and then, but no Mary Jane - instead it's Betty, a reporter at the Bugle who is the female in jeopardy in most cases. The villans are classic sometimes -- Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus appear, but you also have some pretty out there ones too - the Rhino, and assorted wizards and monsters.

My only complaint here is the set is extensive and exhaustive, and that's wonderful but it costs a lot to get and the episodes get monotonous recycling the same plot again and again and in most ... the animation uses stock footage so you see the same sequences again and again. But if you liked the show growing up you'll be smiling with nostalgic glee! Younger fans might find it tame and lame after the movies and the impressive CGI of the MTV series. But these stories were a lot like the comics of the time - simple and fun.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: AWESOME!
Review: As a die-hard Spider-Man fan who came of age in the 1980's, I only saw this show on reruns as a kid. However, I bought this set, and it's awesome! Really brings back those memories. The shows themselves look crisp and really nice...they obviously cleaned them up nicely. The writing and animation is as cheesy as ever, but if you ever watched this as a kid, you'll still love it. And it's complete...what more could you want? Snag this, the complete MTV Spider-Man cartoon from 2003, and hopefully they'll release the entire Fox 1990's Spidey series soon!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The real Spider-Man cartoon
Review: FINALLY!!! After only being able to see parts of this series on DVD with the new Spider-Man cartoons it is about time they released the whole series. That is why I am giving this boxed set sight unseen 5 stars. It has nostagalic valued for some of us. Remembering when we were kids watching it and the original Fantastic 4 cartoon (maybe they can bring the 60's FF show out on DVD too.) on Saturday morning TV in the 60's. Yes kids Saturday morning used to be the time when children would watch cartoons till the afternoon. Now it is just for local news. Anyway get this DVD set Better yet go to the website of Mark Evanier www.newsfromme.com and click on the link so he can get credit for it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Yippe! Hooray! Yayayyy!!!
Review: FINALLY!

Yes! The classic 60s Spidey collected on DVD! These are the ones I have been waiting for. The "must have" of all Spidey cartoons. Great animation? Not exactly, but aside from HB's Fantastic Four--which was reasonably well done--this was the best of the early Marvel Comics cartoons, and they are fun and full of memories. These are also probably the most "pure" of all the animated and live action versions of Spider-Man ever done. They capture a lot of the raw excitement and thrill that was Spidey in the 60s. He was a man of his times, daddy-oh!

And I watched these cartoons before I ever read the comics. This WAS Spider-Man for me when I was a wee lad. I love 'em!

So, should you buy this DVD?
As M.J. might say: "Let's face it, tiger. You just hit the jackpot!"

Thank you, Buena Vista!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Huzzahh!(...)
Review: Finally(...)! The best of the Spider-Man series will be available. I have been waiting for years and will be able to toss away my few VHS tapes bought off of E-Bay and my scratchy downloads. NOTHING comes close to the original series. I get chills hearing the theme song.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: Finally, My dream has come true! My favorite cartoon series of all time, Thank you so much for putting this out.. I would like people to know i hate these computer generated cartoons we have today. I love the hand made ones allot better. And you know what? My kids love the older cartoons too. Better made and better written stories with out all the junk. This release will sell big so get in line quick. I'm very excited about this one...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great addition to your DVD collection
Review: For the past 2 years, Buena Vista has given us tiny morcels of classic Spider-Man on their DVD releases: "Ultimate Villain Showdown" (Origin of Spider-Man), "Return of the Green Goblin" (Terrible Triumph of Dr. Octopus/Magic Malice) and "Spider-Man VS Daredevil" (King Pinned). These DVD releases showcased the newer 1994-1998 Spider-Man animated series, but many fans (such as myself) bought these exclusively for the bonus episodes of the original 1960s series.

What a treat it was for us fans of the original series when Buena Vista released all 52 episodes (or 77 stories) into a 6 disc DVD set. Most of the episodes have been restored by removing the scratches and imperfections. Although some episodes were not restored, I think that this is a good thing because it gives us the chance to see the episodes as they were most likely viewed while the series was broadcast on syndicated TV. Now that the episodes are in DVD format, they will not degrade as they normally would if they were recorded on VHS cassettes. There's no need to worry about your VCR chewing up your tapes!

Although I give this DVD set a 5 star rating, I do have some minor complaints:

-The graphics depicting Spider-Man on the packaging are not from the TV series. In the TV series, Spider-Man's costume only contains web patterns on his mask, gloves and boots whereas on the packaging, the web pattern appears on the full body of the costume.

-The title "'67 Collection" gives the impression that this series only lasted for 1 year on network television while in fact, it lasted for 3 seasons between 1967-1970.

-Although all of the episodes are in the collection, disc 3 contains episodes from seasons 1&2 and disc 5 contains episodes from seasons 2&3, creating overlap. To avoid this, I would have only included 1 instance of the opening sequence and closing credits on each disc, so that season 1 could easily fit on discs 1&2, season 2 on discs 3&4 and season 3 on discs 5&6.

-Lack of bonus features. If Buena Vista used my idea above, there would have been a lot of room on disc 6 to include many bonus features (season 3 only had 13 episodes). Bonus features such as "next week", TV commercials advertising the series, interviews with those involved with the production of this series would have made this DVD set even better.

-Paul Soles (the voice of Spider-Man) had offered himself to Buena Vista to provide voices for the DVD menus. Buena Vista declined probably because they wanted to keep costs down. But I could imagine the expanded possibilities for this collection had Mr. Soles been used, perhaps even a fake "new" bonus episode as a hidden easter egg? (Imagine re-using footage from earlier episodes with Paul Soles providing new dialogue!)

-Although the DVD menus allows you to easily pick and choose which episodes you want to watch, this feature is called "Scene Selection". I think the more correct term should have been "Episode Selection".

I admit that the above complaints are nit-picks on my part. The good stuff: Discs 2-5 contain images of characters that appear in the series. The book-like format of the DVD case is very well done. The opening sequence of the menus is awesome. Buena Vista could have broken up this collection in several parts but instead, they chose to release it into 1 great-looking package. Overall, I'm extremely pleased with this collection!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Episode Questions Answered
Review: For those of you who are wondering if this set will be complete, based on the 52 episodes. The first season of this amazing show was done in a two-stories-per-episode format for the most part. The second season was mostly one story per episode. The third and final season was about half and half. When all is said and done, when you add all the double and single 52 episodes, you end up with 79 stories. Nuff said!

Can't wait for this DVD. It's been a long time coming.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I think it will include all episodes
Review: http://www.spiderfan.org/shows/tv_60s/ lists 52 episodes for this series (20 in season 1, 19 in season 2, 13 in season 3). The site's information agrees with what I remember about this awesome show: all of the 20 first season shows contained two stories (except "The Menace of Magneto", which was a two-parter), and 6 of the 13 third season shows contained two stories. If you add up all the stories shown (39 plus 19 plus 21) you get 79 stories. So the set will be complete!

This set is something I've been dreaming of for some time. So I also am giving the set 5 stars, sight unseen, because the publisher has read my mind. If I could dream of affordable extras for this set, I'd wish for stills of the character sheets and cels (I've seen them around online, so they exist), as well as an isolated soundtrack, so we can clearly hear the background music we've memorized as kids. If that website I referenced above was accurate, the music was bought from a stock music library (except for the opening song) and might be available for their use. I'd love to see interviews with the voice actors or production people, but given the low price of the set, that might be too much to ask. Can't wait until I see this set!!!


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