10 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know About The Spectacular Spider-Man Cartoon
There was going to be a Venom show?
Although there a plenty of other cartoons that likely win the spot of best superhero cartoon ever, you can't deny that the Spectacular Spider-Man was pretty much perfect in a lot of regards. It flawlessly bonded comic and film lore together, creating an experience that every type of Spidey fan could feel was made for them.
Tragically, it also ended early, ending in Season 2 the when Disney took control of Marvel Entertainment. This resulted in Sony giving up their broadcasting rights to Spider-Man TV shows so they could keep the rights to Spider-Man films instead.
In short, the show was the one of the first sacrificial lambs in regards to the continual beef between Sony and Disney over Spidey, which only makes it all the more impressive that it managed to do so much with only half of the time it expected to run.
With such a wild backstory, it's inevitable that wild secrets also come with the show. A mixture of its unusual production situation and delightfully creative development team means that there's a bounty of wonderful things you probably didn't know about the show that make it all the more interesting.
10. There's Unseen Footage
One of the weirdest things about the Spectacular Spider-Man series is that, unless we are somehow blessed by a creator who kept secret copies, we'll never see all of the footage produced for the show.
This is because, when it was first being created, the plan was to have bonus material for each episode that you could only see by watching the DVD, which would release each story arc as a film. Unfortunately, this idea was canned after the first arc, meaning that any footage made for the next arcs went in the bin.
It feels weird to wonder what moments we missed - as it was likely just scenes meant to connect the various episodes into one coherent experience. But it's also maybe not a terrible thing that the series was released on DVD in episodic form, as otherwise you'd have to commit to watching a full film any time you fancied watching an episode.
And while binging a show is practically a way of life by now, being sort of made to feels entirely less fun.