Spider-Man (1994 TV series) Quotes

“Wikipedia: Spider-Man (1994 TV series)”

“I can still see the light in Avi Arad's eyes every time he said the words "Spidahhh-Slayahhhh!" It still haunts me in my nightmares.”

“As it was, there were still plenty of unsold Hobgoblin toys on the shelves at Toys R Us that Christmas. Even with our two-part episode, nobody really liked the character that much.”

“Mary Jane was never the real issue in Peter's life. Peter's insecurities were. And once those are fixed his problems, as a character, and as a hero in the Joseph Campbell tradition, are over.”

“Spider-Man: The Animated Series at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)”

“For me the real fun of Spider-Man is the soap opera that goes on in Peter Parker's real life. The villains are mostly interchangeable. There really isn't much difference between Sandman and Hydro-Man when you get right down to it.”

“When he’s in Peter mode, I wanted to emphasize the youth and insecurity and wonder. When I was in Spider-Man mode, I wanted to emphasize the push back of the heroic nature and the will asserting itself to overcome these obstacles the character has.”

“I think Stan Berkowitz and I just wrote it as though Cletus Kassidy was a serial killer and just never mentioned what he was wanted for. The cops certainly acted like he was a serial killer, they just didn't specifically say, "Boy, that Kassidy is one bad serial killer."”

“I remember on Kraven that first season that Avi and Sidney really wanted some advanced stuff in there quoting of Russian poets and things and I think that ended up staying in. I just wondered why the biggest hunter in the world was named Kraven which, of course, means cowardly.”

“I knew that we were finished with 65 episodes, but I thought maybe we'd have a little bit longer. I thought I made it very clear at at the very end that he was going to get to Mary Jane. I was leaving that door open in case by some miracle they said we were going to do a few more.”

“For me, the story was about an epic kind of coming-of-age of Peter Parker, and when he got to the point where he could turn to his creator and say, 'Well, I'm really not the guy you created anymore. I'm somebody else now. When he gets to that point, I kind of felt like the epic hero's journey was over for him.”

“The character that stood out most to me was Jameson. His hatred for Peter and Spidey was so pathological; I eventually came to the conclusion that Stan was trying to say something about anti-Semitism - which wasn't just confined to Germany when Stan was growing up. Obviously, that's all subtext, but it explains a lot of things.”

“Everybody - producers, network, writers, artists had a different conception of the Venom story; it took a half-day-long meeting with everyone - Avi, Stan, the network rep, the supervising producer (Bob Richardson), John and me, before a storyline could be settled upon - and that was just for the first half hour of the three-parter.”

“I used to tell my writers, 'We're doing the Peter Parker show. We're not doing the Spider-Man show. Let's approach it from Peter's life. Spider-Man is just one of the many complications with his life.' And I think that's one of the reasons why the show is still resonating with people…it's not about explosions and superpowers and costumes.”

“Sure, the supervillain fights are fun, but really it's the soap-opera of Peter Parker's life that keep the audience invested in the character. Will Harry ever forgive him for stealing MJ? Will Felicia marry the Hobgoblin? Will Anna Watson ever get off his back? That's the good stuff.”

“Coming at it from an adult perspective, that, for me was, enough finality. I felt like I had done the whole hero's arc for Peter. But unfortunately, that's a very adult way of looking at things. And really, I momentarily forgot that I was catering to kids, and that they wanted to see if Peter got the girl. Yeah... so I left you all with a horrible feeling of incompletion.”

“My favorite part is when, after Mary Jane's 'death,' Peter has his mask off and is standing on the bridge, thinking and looking down into the water," said Semper. "It's almost a full minute or more of just interior monologue - more like Japanese anime than anything American. No corny action, no villains, nothing. When was the last time you saw that on Saturday morning TV, huh?"”

“I think the fact that it's still playing in syndication and that the videos are still selling after all these years shows how well it was done. Those stories hold up very well because of their intricacies and the series as a whole holds up because it lets you imagine yourself with Spider-Man's kind of problems: I've got school and a girl and some homework but I have to save the world!”

“Spider-Man was doubly hard because of all the pressure in the beginning. Not only is the character a flagship one for Marvel, but there was that pending Jim Cameron movie hovering over us. Also, Fox was the number one kids' network and they wanted nothing less than a huge hit. The result: the stakes were so high that everybody was already at each other's throats by the time I signed on. The political atmosphere was very tense.”

“My goal with Spider-Man was to be make the very first screen treatment of the character that was absolutely true to the comic book. I also wanted to bring him to screen in a way that evoked the same sense of wonder and excitement that I felt when I first started reading the comic in the sixties, right when it all began. I also wanted the show to be a ratings hit, to not embarrass me, and to piss off all my detractors. I’m happy to say that I succeeded on all counts.”