Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends TV (1981) (Introduction)

This series was new in concept: Spider-Man, Iceman, and Firestar all lived with Aunt May as borders while they attended college at ESU. Peter and Bobby Drake shared a room that transformed into a Super Crime Lab and Angelica Jones had a pet dog named Ms. Lion.

The development of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends was prompted by the 1981 solo series, Spider-Man TV (1981) Solo. The two shows had different voice artists, but shared a common graphical style (except for the three episodes of Amazing Friends Season Two animated by Toei Doga).

In their launch season of 1981/82, the two new shows ran side by side. The solo show, Spider-Man TV (1981) Solo ran for only one year - but featured 26 episodes. Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends ran for a total of three seasons, but in fact offered only 24 episodes in total over all that time.

Seasons

Season One ran for 13 episodes, featuring the original Spidey/Firestar/Iceman super-friends concept for the first time.

Season Two featured only three new episodes, which were included in the show titled The Incredible Hulk and the Amazing Spider-Man. It was a one hour show in which the first thirty minutes was composed of a new Hulk cartoon and the second half had new episodes of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. Stan Lee Narration's began with this season. The three episodes of this season were animated by Toei Doga in distinctly more "heroic" style, featuring taller characters.

The names in the show were swapped around for the third and final season, becoming The Amazing Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk. Still one hour long, it featured a new half-hour episode of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends aired with reruns of the Hulk. The animation team was the same as for Season One.

If you're interested in these cartoon series, check out the brilliant Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends Web Page.

Note that according to Spider-Friends.com, there are five versions of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends which have aired on USA television to date:

• VERSION A: The original, 24-minute cartoons as aired Saturday mornings on NBC uncut.
• VERSION B: Episodes that were re-run after their original seasons on NBC until the 1985-86 season. Edited by 2 minutes. Stan Lee narrations were added to 1st season episodes.
• VERSION C: The majority of the episodes were shown on the Marvel Action Universe (1988-89) but had no separate title screen. They ran around 20 minutes in length and the Stan Lee introductions were edited out.
• VERSION D: Aired on the UPN network (1998-99) with one to two minutes of footage edited out of the episodes. Stan Lee narrations sporadically edited.
• VERSION E: Aired on the ABC FAMILY channel (2002) with one to two minutes of footage edited out of the episodes. Stan Lee narrations sporadically edited

Cast Information

The voices for the regular cast of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends featured:

      Peter Parker/Spider Man   - Dan Gilvezan
      Firestar/Angelica Jones   - Kathy Garver
      Iceman/Bobby Drake        - Frank Welker
      Aunt May                  - June Foray

Audio Files

MP3 format sound files.

• Amazing Friends Seasons 1 Theme (MP3, 113 Kb)
• Amazing Friends Seasons 3 Theme (MP3, 116 Kb)