{"id":379202,"date":"2026-04-07T07:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/379202\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T07:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:59:12","slug":"48-years-ago-cbs-forgotten-spider-man-show-debuted-almost-led-to-2-huge-crossovers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/379202\/","title":{"rendered":"48 Years Ago, CBS’ Forgotten Spider-Man Show Debuted (& Almost Led to 2 Huge Crossovers)"},"content":{"rendered":"

You probably don\u2019t know the full history of Spider-Man\u2019s<\/a> time on the screen. Sure, fans today know of milestone TV releases like Spider-Man: The Animated Series in the 1990s, or its successors, Spectacular Spider-Man, and Ultimate Spider-Man; and the live-action films need no introduction, with the upcoming film Spider-Man: Brand New Day being the ninth installment since Sam Raimi\u2019s Spider-Man (2002).<\/p>\n

However, Spider-Man has gotten a few adaptations that have fallen into obscurity. The Wall-Crawler appeared in no less than four TV movies: one of them was a spinoff of the now-iconic Japanese Spider-Man TV series of the \u201970s, the other three were part of a Spider-Man TV series most modern fans don\u2019t even know exists! <\/p>\n

Amazing Spider-Man First Premieres 48 Years Ago (& Spawned One of the First Movies)<\/p>\n

\"\"CBS<\/p>\n

On April 5, 1978, The Amazing Spider-Man<\/a> aired its first episode on CBS. While it was, technically, not the first piece of content from the series, it was the official start of the show. Amazing Spider-Man officially began with a movie-length pilot, which aired on CBS in September of 1977, and was then released theatrically internationally. On April 5, 1978, the regular TV series started after the film-length pilot was successful. The first episode (\u201cThe Deadly Dust: Part 1\u201d) and the second episode (\u201cThe Deadly Dust: Part 2\u201d) were eventually cut together by Columbia Pictures and sold on VHS home video as a second feature film, called Spider-Man Strikes Back.<\/p>\n

The Amazing Spider-Man CBS series didn\u2019t last long: the network canceled it in July of 1979, after just 13 episodes. Regardless, the series produced two TV movies, which went on to become bigger cult-hits than the show, thanks to home video. It at once proved that Spider-Man was a bit too complex a character to do in live-action on a TV budget (at the time), but also walked so that the Spider-Man movies could eventually run (or swing) on the big screen.<\/p>\n

The show starred Nicholas Hammond as Peter Parker\/Spider-Man, with Robert F. Simon as J. Jonah Jameson (David White played the role in the pilot film), Chip Fields as Daily Bugle secretary Rita Conway, with actors like Ellen Bry, Michael Pataki, and others appearing in the show. <\/p>\n

Amazing Spider-Man Inspired Two Big Crossovers (That Never Happened) <\/p>\n

\"\"CBS<\/p>\n

At the time when The Amazing Spider-Man aired, there was only one other Marvel character who was appearing onscreen: The Incredible Hulk TV series, which famously ran for 5 seasons (80 episodes) on CBS, from 1977 to 1982. The stars of both shows wanted a crossover to happen, but it never occurred.<\/p>\n

Spider-Man actor Nicholas Hammond happened to be friends with Bill Bixby, the actor who played Bruce Banner (while bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno played the Hulk). A few years back, Hammon spoke about his talks with Bixby about getting their two Marvel characters together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about crossing the TV series, making a two-parter about Spider-Man and the Hulk joining forces,\u201d Hammond told THR<\/a>. \u201cBut it never got past the stage of two actors talking at the end of the day over a beer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The painful irony of that (for Hammond in particular) is that Bixby would eventually get not one, but two Marvel TV movie crossovers: one with Thor (The Incredible Hulk Returns \u2013 1988) and one with Daredevil (The Trial of the Incredible Hulk \u2013 1989). Both of those films became cult hits and paved the way for the first attempts at bigger live-action Marvel projects in the 1990s. <\/p>\n

\"\"CBS<\/p>\n

The Amazing Spider-Man\u2018s legacy is still being felt today: Marvel and DC are each releasing their own special one-shots that see Spider-Man and Superman cross over. One of the major creators involved with the project, Dan Slott, revealed on social media that he wanted to do a story with Hammond\u2019s Amazing Spider-Man and Christopher Reeve\u2019s Superman \u2013 but he couldn\u2019t get it approved. <\/p>\n

\u201cLudicrous stuff I pitched for SPIDER-MAN\/SUPERMAN #1 Part 2 of 2: \u2018Can I do 70\u2019s TV Live Action Nicholas Hammond Spider-Man meets Superman: The Movie Christopher Reeve Superman?\u2019\u201d Slott revealed in a Blue Sky post<\/a>. \u201cAnd Marvel was like, \u2018You think that would be EASIER to get through? You KNOW how this works. What is wrong with you?!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Discuss all things Spider-Man with us on the ComicBook Forum<\/a>! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You probably don\u2019t know the full history of Spider-Man\u2019s time on the screen. Sure, fans today know of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[130044,57781,146,85,46,2079,397,26820],"class_list":{"0":"post-379202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-amazing-spider-man","9":"tag-answer-feature","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-marvel","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-spider-man"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}