Saturday Morning Fever #6 – Spider-Woman

Grab a bowl of your favorite sugary cereal and enjoy as Ryan Daly and Derek Crabbe discuss the whacky wall-crawling adventures of Spider-Woman the animated series from 1979.

Let us know what you think! Leave a comment or send an email to: RDalyPodcast@gmail.com.

 

Check out Derek at the Fanholes Podcasthttp://fanholespodcast.blogspot.com or check out the History of Comics on Film Youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/user/derekwc/featured

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Musical theme by Luke Daab Britney Spears.

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7 responses to “Saturday Morning Fever #6 – Spider-Woman

  1. First things first: the art on the iconic cover of Spiderwoman #1 was done by Joe Sinnott.
    Interesting discussion. I remember watching this when it first aired and not thinking too much of it. At that point, I was also reading the Spiderwoman comics and I didn’t like all of the changes from her comic book status quo. And I especially didn’t like the nephew, Billy. I recall he was such an annoying little know-it-all, like in this one episode that had something to do with ancient Egypt and a mummy, and he knew how to read hieroglyphics because they just covered ancient Egypt in school. Say what?!
    However, all of that said, it didn’t stop me from watching every Saturday morning. It was a superhero cartoon – how could I *not* watch it?
    I also think Derek has some really good points about how Spiderwoman was “DC-ed.” I would also add that she was sort of “Saturdaymorninged,” because I always found it a bit reminiscent of another Saturday morning staple of the mid- to late-1970s, the live-action Isis show. There, Isis is a high school teacher, and her supporting cast includes another (male) teacher/potential love interest who’s a bit dopey and also kind of patronizing, and one of her (female) students who’s also some kind of teaching assistant – and Isis often has to rescue one or both them during the course of the show.

    1. Otherwise, since you mentioned that the entire series is posted up on YouTube, I went to check it out – and found that the Mouse has blocked them for my country. Darn.

      1. I noticed that, too. I was going to use some audio clips for the episode, but Disney has blocked them on Youtube. I *think* the show is going to be included with the Disney+ streaming service.

  2. Fun show guys. I watched this as a kid, and enjoyed it. I think Spider-Woman’s design is just about as good as it gets for a super hero costume. Any time they muck with it is a crime. It did weird me out that Spider-Man had yellow eyes in his appearances here. So much so that when Andrew Garfield showed up with yellow goggles (at least in a lot of the promotional shots for his first Spidey film), I couldn’t help but think of this show.

    With this show, the machine that would crank out our beloved Marvel shows like the 80s Spider-Man, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, The Incredible Hulk and yes that one shot Pryde of the X-Men pilot was set into motion. Didn’t Marvel Animation and DePatie Freling basically merge to become one? Seems like that’s right. Anyway, the style of animation, music, production values, etc, that was in those shows and other Marvel-produced toons like G.I. Joe, Transformers, and Jem seems to start here.

    Spider-Woman was all over the place in the late 70s. Marvel finally felt like they had a Wonder Woman-level character, and soon she was on every Marvel product alongside Spider-Man, Captain America, and the Hulk, who also just got a HUGE boost from the TV show. Spider-Woman’s role didn’t stick, and I would argue Marvel didn’t have a character with Wonder Woman-level appeal on merchandising until the MCU gave us Black Widow and Captain Marvel.

    Chris

  3. Oh, man. Any show that begins with a Ryan revenge plot immediately propels this to a five star episode.

    This show was, well, best left behind as a memory, I think. It was certainly a different take on the character. And why did they give Spider-Man yellow eye holes?

  4. I know I watched Spider-Woman avidly as a kid, but I’ll be darned if I remember anything about the series, beyond her character design. Thank you for the refresher course.

  5. Spider-Woman, noted trademark holder. I bought Spider-Woman #1 off the stands, and then kept buying it for more than four years. There never was any there there. Origin, civilian job, friends, family, supporting cast, milieu; all of it subject to change at the writers’ or editors’ caprice. On one hand, the character was a culmination of The Marvel Age of Comics, to that point. To truly understand her, a reader needed to be fully versed in the story of The High Evolutionary and Wundagore Mountain, as well as the inner workings of S.H.I.E.L.D. Yet she never really seemed to be integrated into the Marvel Universe. On the other hand she was kind of a passive and dull character, so she was easily adaptable. Like with this cartoon, apparently. I never watched this, as the autumn it aired I was a sophomore in High school and had to be at the school on Saturday mornings for marching band practice! I remember seeing the ads for the “New Saturday Morning Lineup” in the comics, though! Funnily enough, from the clip you played, her origin in the cartoon is easier to understand than her origin in the comic!
    That was Britany Spears, eh? Well, she’s no Samantha Fox.

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