Spider-Man: The Animated Series/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Executive Meddling: Boy howdy. To elaborate, a few specific examples:
    • The writers weren't allowed to use the words death, die, or kill; hence, when Peter found out Uncle Ben had been killed, it was shown as a police officer shaking his head and saying "I'm sorry, kid. The guy was armed." Also, realistic guns were out, so even petty thieves were armed with futuristic lasers.
    • A case of executive meddling having an outright odd effect was in the character of Morbius, a vampire. The writers weren't allowed to show him sucking blood through his fangs, so he apparently has fangs for no reason, as he instead drains plasma (they can't use the word "blood" apparently) through suckers in his hands. The suckers were so squicktastic that they made the character even creepier, whereas his declarations of "I hunger for PLASMA!" were often Narm.
    • Another example is Carnage. In the comics, he was a mass-murdering psychopath, but in the series he wasn't allowed to kill anyone -- instead he sucked out their "essence" through his hands, which was restored to his victims after he was sucked into a portal. In the scene where he acquires the symbiote he attacks some prison guards; he picks one up and makes some knives with his fingers but instead it shows him busting through a wall.
      • In all fairness to Fox, the NYPD's description of Cletus Cassidy implied his psychopathic tendencies, not to mention his mannerisms and laughter were still pretty creepy in their own right (especially the laughter). So while Carnage could not kill anyone, the censorship didn't stifle his sadistic personality.
    • Spider-Man was also never allowed to throw a punch because it would make the show too violent. The writers managed to slip just one punch in the 65-episode series.
      • Although Tropes Are Not Bad in this case, as it forced Spider-Man to be much more clever in his crimefighting, which fits his genius-level intellect.
    • They also weren't allowed to break windows, which also got snuck in, one wonders how they missed that.
    • If that's not absurd, listen to these:

"When Spider-Man lands on a roof, make sure he doesn't harm any pigeons."
"Spider-Man can imprison a villain, but they can not be given a ticket to California to leave."

    • Another positive effect occurred when a mixup over villain names forced the writers to introduce the Hobgoblin in season one rather than the Green Goblin, to match the toys that had been ordered. This allowed Hobgoblin to become an engaging character in his own right and a precursor to the more dangerous Green Goblin.
    • The censorship standards led to The Punisher being pretty much castrated. He was purely non-lethal and pretty ineffective as a result. However, the telling of his origin (for those unaware, the brutal shooting of his wife and young children which obviously couldn't be shown) was incredibly effective. The only visual was a kite flying in the sky and at the sound of gunshots fell to the ground, landing in a puddle and forming the classic skull as it became soaked in water.
    • Why Sandman never appeared and Electro was an altered character. When the series started, James Cameron's movie was going to feature the two as villains (though with heavy tweaking), so the rights were all tied up. (The reason why Electro was snuck in towards the end was because by that time it was a given that Cameron's project was never going to happen.)
  • Fake American: Jennifer Hale, who voices Black Cat, is Canadian by birth.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Mark Hamill brought what was essentially a slightly deeper, more toned-down version of his Joker voice to the Hobgoblin, but it works very well.
  • The Other Darrin: Richard Moll replaced Martin Landau as the Scorpion. After the deaths of Philip Abbott and Linda Gary, Jack Angel and Julie Bennett replaced them respectively as Nick Fury and Aunt May. Oliver Muirhead (who'd earlier voiced the Spot) replaced Malcolm McDowell as Whistler. As noted earlier, despite most of the guests star retaining their VAs from prior shows, outside of Quinton Flynn, the Fantastic Four were recast, along with Daredevil and Doctor Doom.
  • Screwed by the Network: The head of Fox Kids had beef with this show's producer.
  • What Could Have Been: The adaptation of Secret Wars was originally going to feature a number of additional characters, most notably Mister Sinister. These were later scrapped for numerous reasons - namely costs since Sinister's voice actor, Chris Britton, is Canadian based (the cast of the X-Men series had previously been flown to LA from Canada for their appearance in the crossover, which proved expensive. Storm got to appear because she's a The Other Darrin case, and her former voice actress was in LA.)
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