The Amazing Spider-Man (known simply as Spider-Man for the second season) is an American superhero television series, based on the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man. It is the second live-action television series appearance of a Marvel character. Spidey Super Stories aired three years earlier on The Electric Company. It originally aired on CBS in the United States from September 14, 1977 to July 6, 1979.
Though it was a considerable ratings success, the CBS series was cancelled after just 13 episodes, which included a pilot film airing in autumn of 1977.
Contents
Cast and characters
Main
Nicholas Hammond as Peter Parker / Spider-Man
Robert F. Simon as J. Jonah Jameson
Chip Fields as Rita Conway
Michael Pataki as Capt. Barbera (season 1)
Ellen Bry as Julie Masters (season 2)
David White played J. Jonah Jameson in the pilot TV movie, but the character was recast for the series proper, played by Robert F. Simon.
Jameson's secretary Rita Conway is essentially Gloria "Glory" Grant of the comics, with a different name. The character was possibly renamed in partial tribute to Glory Grant's co-creator, writer Gerry Conway (who wrote the comics The Amazing Spider-Man and The Spectacular Spider-Man in 1972-1975 and 1976-1977 respectively; Glory Grant debuted during Conway's run on The Amazing Spider-Man in 1975).
Hilly Hicks played Robbie Robertson of the Daily Bugle in the pilot TV movie but the character was not retained in the series. Hicks played a version of Robertson notably younger than his comic-book counterpart.
Peter Parker's Aunt May appeared in two episodes of the series; the character was played by Jeff Donnell in the pilot episode and by Irene Tedrow in the first season's fifth episode, “Night of the Clones.”
Capt. Barbera (played by Michael Pataki in the first season) and Julie Masters (played by Ellen Bry in the second) are original to the series rather than the Spider-Man comics.
Production
During the mid-1970s, Marvel Comics publisher and Spider-Man's co-creator Stan Lee, sold CBS the rights to produce a prime time live-action Spider-Man series, to be made by producer Daniel R. Goodman. Actor Nicholas Hammond was cast in the lead role, though all of Spider-Man's stunts were performed by the series's stunt coordinator, Fred Waugh. Lee and Goodman fiercely clashed over the direction of the series during the initial production. Lee once said in an interview for Pizzazz magazine that he felt the series was "too juvenile".
Despite its storylines being set in New York City (the character's hometown), the series was mostly filmed in Los Angeles.
The series began as a backdoor pilot: a 90-minute movie known simply as Spider-Man which was broadcast on CBS TV network in September 1977, which was theatrically released internationally. In it, Peter Parker (as an intrepid university student) gains super powers after being bitten by a radioactive spider. He uses those powers to get a job at the Daily Bugle, and to stop a con man who is covertly using mind control for personal gain.
The pilot garnered a 17.8 rating with a 30 share - CBS' highest rating for the entire year. However, citing concern over the pilot's relatively weak ratings in the lucrative adult-demographic (ages 18–49), CBS picked up the series for only a limited, five-episode order (those 5 episodes were aired in April and May 1978, at the tail-end of the 1977–78 TV season). This run of episodes debuted very well, with the first obtaining a 22.8 rating with 16.6 million viewers, making it the best-rated program for the week on CBS, and the eighth-best-rated program for the week, overall. The series ended up being the 19th-highest-rated show of the entire season, but CBS was reluctant to commit to giving the show a regular/fixed time slot for the 1978-79 season, as the series was expensive to produce and continued to underperform with older audiences.
CBS took the more cautious approach of airing episodes on a sporadic basis, strategically placing it on the broadcast schedule to deliberately hurt the ratings of specific competing shows, at key times in the TV season (e.g. "sweeps"). Former Six Million Dollar Man producer Lionel Siegel took over production duties for season two, noticeably changing the show in an attempt to grow its adult audience. These changes included dropping the Captain Barbera character; adding the character of Julie Masters as a love interest for Peter; creating more down-to-earth plotlines; and slightly toning-down Spider-Man's superpowers, to make him more accessible to adult viewers.
Directors
Tom Blank
Cliff Bole
Michael Caffey
Dennis Donnelly
Tony Ganz
Fernando Lamas
Joseph Manduke
Don McDougall
Ron Satlof
Larry Stewart
E. W. Swackhamer
Episodes
For their release in VHS format, several of the series's episodes were spliced together in pairs. "Night of the Clones and Escort to Danger", "A Matter of State and Photo Finish" and "The Con Caper and The Curse of Rava" were combined and presented as a single movie-length episodes. In order to smooth the jump between the two unrelated stories in each release, the production team filmed new bridging scenes set at the Daily Bugle and inserted them between the content of the two component episodes. These scenes were never broadcast, either in the series's original run or in any reruns.
The pilot and two pairs of episodes were released as movies internationally by Columbia Pictures (following their first character film rights for future films) as Spider-Man, Spider-Man Strikes Back, and Spider-Man: The Dragon's Challenge.
Revival attempt
In a 2002 interview with SFX magazine, Nicholas Hammond revealed that there were plans to do an Amazing Spider-Man series reunion film in 1984. The proposal would have had the original cast team-up with the cast of The Incredible Hulk television series (a major hit for CBS), with Hammond appearing in the black Spider-Man costume. According to Hammond, a deal was arranged to have Columbia and Universal Studios co-produce the project. Bill Bixby was going to direct the TV-movie, in addition to reprising the role of David Banner. Universal eventually cancelled the project. Hammond said he was told that Lou Ferrigno was unavailable to reprise his role as the Hulk, because he was in Italy filming Hercules. However, in his 2003 autobiography My Incredible Life as the Hulk, Ferrigno stated that he was never contacted about the project, adding that he had recently finished filming Hercules II and that his availability was not an issue.
In other media
In 2026, comic book writer Dan Slott revealed that a story featuring Nicholas Hammond’s Spider‑Man and Christopher Reeve’s version of Superman was considered for the intercompany crossover Spider-Man/Superman. Marvel rejected the idea due to rights and licensing concerns, and Slott instead opted for a story set in the 1930s featuring Spider-Man Noir and the Golden Age Superman.