Facebook – Top 50 FAVORITE Animated Programs of All Time: 47

47: Spider-Man (1994-1998/FOX)

This is one of the shows that defined my Saturday morning cartoon experience. The continual adventures of Peter Parker were heavily inspired by origin stories for the title character and his various enemies, with a nice twist of plot here and there, just to keep everything interesting. The show found a reason to showcase just about every character from his entire history, too, from mainstays like Mary Jane, Venom, and the Green Goblin… down to some more random and obscure characters like… The Spot? …The Beyonder? Why they felt the need to include these characters is Beyond me (see what I did there?) but it was pretty cool.

Famous story lines were visited, from the symbiote/Brock/Venom plot, the Spider-Slayers plot, and even – in some ways – weirder things like Spider Armor, the Six-Armed Spidey, and even bits and pieces of the clone saga. These all had great twists to make them easier to digest for kids, and in 30-minute episodes, often times filled with random cameos from other Marvel heavy hitters (Captain America, Iron Man, even a crossover with the cast of (the much better) X-Men show running at the same time. This made the universe seem more fleshed out and, while at times its own, at other times paired right up with the comic universe, too.

The animation was slick, the characters well defined, and it provided us with the best portrayal of Spider-Man ever shown on a screen, thanks to the voice work of Christopher Daniel Barnes who, like Kevin Conroy’s Batman, defined the character for an entire generation of kids who have now grown up and know his voice instantly.

Favorite Episode:
Easily the final “Secret Wars” episode about Dr. Doom. This trilogy of episodes wins instantly for doing a kick-ass job of converting the old “Secret Wars” story from the comics into bite-sized portions, but the finale presents us with the legit ending from the comics; Dr. Doom getting the Beyonder’s powers. It leads into a pretty lame ending for the show, but these episodes highlight just how far they were willing to go to get the feel of the comic right for fans of the show, but also for people who knew their comic history.

Favorite Character:
Wilson Fisk, aka The Kingpin. Why? That one time they had a light battle and Spider-Man demanded to know what the Kingpin would “beat” him in… “a pie eating contest?!” Then the Kingpin almost kills Spider-Man with a simple crushing hold. Plus, he was the primary villain for oh so long. Good enough.

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Added April 4, 2017
Just tried watching some of this on YouTube.
Key word: Tried.
Garbage at this point.