The Forgotten 1977 Spider-Man Series Was Harder to Make Than You Think

Before Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland, there was Nicholas Hammond. In 1977, CBS tried to bring Spider-Man to live-action television without CGI, digital doubles, or modern stunt technology. Hammond had to perform in a mask he could barely see through, while stuntman Fred Waugh and the production crew had to figure out how to make a real human being crawl across ceilings, swing between buildings, and move like Spider-Man. And some of the solutions were far more impressive than they look today. In this episode of Greybeard Comics, I take another look at The Amazing Spider-Man television series, Nicholas Hammond’s unlikely road from The Sound of Music to Peter Parker, Fred Waugh’s stunt work, the strange Spider-Man POV camera, Stan Lee’s criticism of the series, and why CBS ultimately let the show disappear. The 1977 series certainly wasn’t perfect — but once you understand how they actually made it, it deserves a little more respect. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Forgotten Spider-Man 1:24 The Mask Problem 2:39 Crawling Across the Ceiling 3:48 How Spider-Man Actually Swung 5:16 Spider-Man’s 1977 POV Camera 6:39 The Problem With This Spider-Man 7:54 What Was Missing 8:56 Two Different Judgments of the Show 9:36 Why CBS Cancelled Spider-Man 10:37 Was the 1977 Spider-Man Actually Good? 12:10 Somebody Had to Go First Who do you think played the best live-action Spider-Man — Nicholas Hammond, Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, or Tom Holland? #SpiderMan #NicholasHammond #Marvel