Spider-Man TV (1967) - Season 1, Episode 6 (Story 1)

Background

Personally I hate diets but like metal. Heavy metal music that is. One would think that this would lend itself well to an episode like this. One would be horribly wrong.

Story 'Diet of Destruction'

While on night patrol, Spider-Man notices that the lights in Central Park are out. Further investigation finds the source of the power outage. It's a thirty-foot tall robot with giant electromagnets for hands, a blast furnace for a mouth, and an insatiable appetite for … metal. As in lampposts, fire hydrants, etc. [Oddly enough there is nobody out tonight – in New York City.]

Questioning his sanity, Spider-Man swings down to the ground to get a picture for Jonah. Being the robotic version of Sean Penn, this robot doesn't appreciate having his picture taken and electromagnetically removes some molten slag from it's mouth and throws it at Spider-Man [Ok, this is the TV censor-approved behavior of taking partially chewed food out of your mouth and throwing it at people, right? Just checking. Continue.] This catches many of the trees on fire. While Spider-Man puts out the fire with the webbing [ A lot of it, by the way. He should be completely empty] the robot disappears. How he disappears is a mystery.

At the Daily Bugle, Jonah refuses to believe that there is a metal-eating monster loose in New York [As would I given that nobody else saw it.] He thinks that Peter's picture is something from a science fiction movie. Then the reports start to come in about the monster's activities throughout the city. He sends Peter to take more photographs while he takes these calls. He first makes a stop at his house to whip up a batch of special web fluid.

His search for the monster doesn't take too long. When he sees a string of cars flying through the air, he knows that the robot is nearby. [Wonder if that trick would work today with our lighter, fiberglass cars?] Following the trail, he finds the robot in a junkyard stuffing his face with cars like a kid in a candy store [Quite possibly the oddest analogy you'll ever hear. Judges?] He tries his new web formula on the robot, but it is snapped like thread.

Down but not out, Spider-Man hops into a nearby electromagnetic crane and engages in a tug-of-war with the robot. The robot becomes annoyed and throws a car at the crane destroying it [Wow. They made cars that were tougher than cranes back then. Who knew?] The robot picks up the car with the annoying red and blue pest attached to it and prepares to eat it. Spider-Man frees himself and retreats to a better location. The robot is annoyed [Indicated by his "angry LED eyes"] and throws a pile of cars at him. He saves himself by creating a protective dome with his webbing. [Wow. Just wow. His webbing is stronger than a pile of cars, one of which can demolish a crane. Something is not right here.] The robot uses this distraction to once again escape.

The robot makes its way to the waterfront, soon followed by Spider-Man. He webs the robot's legs together and, using a tugboat, drags him into the water where he sinks below the surface.

General Comments

My biggest complaints with this episode:

1. This is something that you would see the Fantastic Four dealing with, not Spider-Man
2. You can tell they were cutting corners on this episode because there were no crowd scenes. I would expect at least one "run from the monster" sequence.
3. He saved the day by drowning the villain? Weak.
4. No explanation was given for why the robot suddenly appeared. The Plutonians had a reason.

Overall Rating

1/2 web. Running around asking "oh what can we do to stop a monster" and then doing something rather unorthodox at the last minute will garner this kind of rating. This reeked of episode filler from the first minute.