Uriah43 "Peter Parker" (Nicholas Hammond) is a bright, young college student who accidentally gets bitten by a radioactive spider and soon finds out that he has gained great strength and can climb buildings because of it. At first he doesn't know what to do with his special powers but when prominent citizens begin doing bizarre things upon the command of a master criminal he realizes that he has little choice but to investigate the situation and to attempt to stop him. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film served as the pilot for a television series aired back in 1977 and because of that it clearly shows its age. Not only is it quite dated but the special effects were extremely basic and the overall plot definitely suffers from the made-for-television format. Having said that, while I don't necessarily believe that this particular movie is a complete waste of time, I honestly have difficulty rating it any higher than I have. Slightly below average.

jefffisher65-708-541158 I am a little surprised that this series is remembered by even the relatively-few people it seems to be; as a 12 year-old fan in 1977, I caught what episodes of this series as I could, although I must have missed some due to it being yanked all over the schedule like it was. Of course, kids, we only had TV Guide, and the local newspaper television supplements to help us, you know, in those "prehistoric" days.I have seen a couple of the television movies made from episodes tacked-together lately, the nostalgia value is still high even if the series' production vales weren't so great. Nicholas Hammond as Peter Parker/Spider-Man was really too old for the part, but that said, he was clearly a good-hearted, kind fellow one could accept as a super-hero sort of person. I missed more elements from the comic book like Mary Jane, for example, but they did adapt the clone saga from the mid-1970s era of the title which was nifty. Robert F. Simon did well as J. Jonah Jamison even if he didn't look anything like his comics counterpart.I think CBS mad another error by not having super-villains to oppose Parker, as this undoubtedly turned off many of us then-young fans. I suppose the fellow with psychic powers in the Curse of Rava was about the nearest thing to one.All this aside, it wasn't as bad a show as many seem to think, given the limitations of 1970s action/super-hero television effects. I'm not sure if this is out on DVD yet or not, but hope it will be so in time if it isn't.

Chase_Witherspoon Like "The Incredible Hulk", "Spider Man" (played here by Nicholas Hammond) was another in the superhero stable that entertained legions of fans (adults too) in the late seventies, myself included. My review here refers to the pilot in which mild mannered Peter Parker inherits the senses and agility of a spider, after coming into contact with radioactive waves during an arachnid experiment. His boss at the local rag (David White, post-Larry Tate on "Bewitched") is eager for him to cover the story of how seemingly random citizens are suiciding, which leads both Parker and his alter ego to discover an elaborate mind control plot involving the evil Edward Byron (Thayer David) whereby he commits crimes vicariously through his hypnotised victims.What distinguishes the pilot from its peers, in my opinion is the cast - Mike Pataki and Bob Hastings as the cops, Jeff Donnell as Aunt Parker, Len Lesser (future uncle Leo on "Seinfeld"), Ivor Francis and Harry Caesar. Lisa Eilbacher is so-so as the love interest in a role not too distant from her signature performance in "Beverly Hills Cop". It's definitely young adolescent material, but even as an adult, I found plenty of drama, action and light comedy to enjoy.Less pretentious than the recent remakes, I'm still a little confounded as to why the three feature-length titles (the other two are "Spider Man Strikes Back" and "The Dragon's Challenge") haven't been re-distributed for DVD, to enjoy some residual popularity (and just plain ride the coat-tails of the Raimi success wagon). Anyway, probably still available on VHS, so if you're spider mad or just curious about this now 'ancient predecessor', it shouldn't disappoint.

Thorsten-Krings Spiderman was one of the first comic books to initiate a change in the genre: in spite of being a very well made superhero comic book this is the first series ever that added a real psychological depth to the main character, had complex moral issue, round characters and also highlighted social and political issues. in other words: Spiderman was the comic book's coming of age. This TV series lacks all of those components. It's just a straightforward good buy / bad guy TV series suffering from obvious budgetary rerstraints that make the action scene moderately exciting. Spiderman nylon webbing is about as convincing as the cardboard rocks in Star trek. Nicholas Hammond is way too old for the role at that point in time. I think he was well into his thirties wheras Spider,man was really teenager at the time. For some unfathomable reason the writers also changed names and deleted important characters from the comic book which again just resulted in the tension between characters basically disappearing.