Trip To Tomorrow... AKA Trip To The Past. (Review)

Today I'm looking at the last episode of the 1967 Spider-Man TV show, since I think it's worth looking at. I just gotta watch it first. It looks like the guys at Krantz films (aka Grantray-Lawrence Animation) were aware of this being the last Spider-Man episode, because it sure feels like one, but it also doesn't feel like one. 

Back in 1966, Marvel teamed up with Grantray-Lawrence to produce the very first motion comics based on their superheroes. But they decided to make Spider-Man its own separate TV show. Y'know, I think that's very neat because Spider-Man is way cooler than whoever those guys were, like, I could ask my mom if she knows Spider-Man, and she'd say yes because she used to purchase large amounts of merchandise for me as a kid, but if I asked her who Namor was, she'd be pretty fucking confused. 

This show had lots of characters from the comics and even some original characters like Dr. Noah Boddy... Uhm... He's the most memorable one for me. It was pretty neat; I liked Paul Soles as Spider-Man. I liked some other things.

5-year-old me would watch this series in Italian, I still somehow understood everything. 

Today, I am looking at "Trip To Tomorrow".

The theme song for this show is absolutely fantastic. It's catchy, memorable, and iconic, really tells you that this guy can do whatever a spider can. 

This is the title card for the episode. 

The episode itself begins with shots of new york, but the sky looks like they just dropped several buckets of paint. Spider-Man is swinging through the air like he always does... I thought this was the night time, but it's the morning! What the fuck... Okay, so he's still swinging and a lightning bolt strikes for NO reason and cuts his web, causing him to fall into a train car.

When he wakes up, he meets a kid that is running away from home... Instead of lecturing him, Spider-Man is like "oh, I see...". The kid is like "You think I could become a real crimefighter like you?" and Spidey is like "it's easy"... Now, as a Spider-Man connoisseur myself, I would tell you that this is complete bullcrap, Spider-Manning is NOT easy, I should know, I've tried it myself.

Spidey remembers when... We get a flashback to the episode where Odin (Volton goes insane and steals all the gold of the world, which was apparently just sitting inside a really tall building, this is a clip from the episode "Thunder Rumble". Wow, Spider-man was just so COOL in the late 60's, he was able to stop a god of destruction! 

Back at the train car, the boy is like "That sure didn't look easy", what do you mean? He stopped that guy flawlessly! Spider-Man remembers when... He was trying to find the phantom ship. This is a clip from the episode "Return of the Flying Dutchman". In this one, Spidey fights Mysterio and also finds the Flying Dutchman. DUH! Oh, and I forgot his iconic catchphrase, Walloping Websnappers! The iconic catchphrase that was in ALL the Ditko and Romita comics... What, don't you remember? It was in all of them. Spider-Man would be pretty lame if he couldn't save himself from the curse of the Flying Dutchman, so he manages to escape the ship and defeat Mysterio and his goons.*

*Goons means henchmen. People that help a crime boss. 

This kid instantly believes the man that is saying all of this and not once does he question Spider-Man... Though, to be fair, he is a child. Spider-Man remembers when he went to HELL. There are terrifying creatures all over this place, and the sky looks JUST like in New York! He is obviously at Cryptic Castle from the 2005 game Shadow The Hedgehog, and he is gonna fight Kotep, the evil sorcerer. This scene is from the episode titled... "The Evil Sorcerer". I wonder if Spider-Man includes commercial breaks in his flashbacks too.

The kid leaves because after hearing Spidey's tales, he thinks that he is not ready yet to be a superhero. The episode AND the show end with Spider-Man laughing at the foolish kid. 

Is this a good finale? Well, there's no loose ends to tie for this, so I guess it's alright. This doesn't feel like a big finale, Spidey doesn't really go up against any big challenge, this is just a lame clip show. 7/10. I guess it's okay. Must've been sad for a kid in 1970, just seeing that your favorite Spider-Man show has ended.

NEXT TIME... Spidey movie.