Does everything a spider can
For several weeks in July, August, and September, I watched every episode of Spider-Man, the animated series that was on FOX from 1994 to 1997. I had seen most of the episodes growing up, but seeing them again now, I realize how much this cartoon series respected children as an audience.
I see respect for the audience in several aspects of the show:
1. Complex characters. Peter Parker is consistently an intelligent and flawed character. We see how smart he is in figuring how to defeat villains, and when he makes mistakes it’s because his arrogance, carelessness, or anger. Everything Peter does makes sense, though. His actions are logical reactions to what happens to him and around him. The villains are relatively flat compared to Peter, but even they have logical motivations. Doc Ock needs resources for his research. The Green Goblin sabotages the King Pin’s work so that Norman Osbourne can keep a clean reputation.
2. Multiple story lines at the same time. Episodes often contain one problem for Peter Parker and one for Spider-Man. Besides those, we see plot developments with Mary Jane, Harry, and Aunt May.
3. Multi-episode stories. Spider-Man often carried a story over several episodes. Recaps at the beginning of every episode probably helped children follow along, but even so, children had to pay close attention to make sense of the larger story. Characters and other elements from early seasons came back in the final season of the show. That’s a lot of detail to ask children to remember.
4. Crossovers. I’m impressed with the number of Marvel characters Spider-Man features. I started keeping track after I realized crossovers were a recurring theme. The X-Men, Punisher, Daredevil, Iron Man, War Machine, Captain America, Blade, Red Skull, and Fantastic Four all teamed up with or fought against Spider-Man in the series.
Spider-Man respected its child audience by offering entertaining, complex stories. The banter and action scenes so typical of superhero cartoons are there, but so are deeply emotional scenes, like when Peter loses Mary Jane. The creators of the series must have felt that children could follow and enjoy these stories. Or else, why would they bother writing such developed plots and characters?
I feel like today’s creators of children’s television have much lower expectations for their audience. Children today are lucky to watch characters who behave rationally, let alone see complicated and satisfying story lines.