The Quiet One

I’d wager that most of you visiting don’t remember the first live-action Spider-Man
on screen.



Clearly, based on the image above, I don’t mean Tobey Maguire. Or Nicholas Hammond, who starred as Peter Parker over 12 episodes of The Amazing Spider-Man on CBS starting in 1978, spun out of a TV movie the year before — or even the stuntman inside the costume for most of that show, Fred Waugh. Or, for that matter, Shinji Tōdō; he led Toei's スパイダーマン [Supaidāman], a very loose adaptation of the Marvel character, which aired in Japan during roughly the same span as its American counterpart.

No, I’m talking about Danny Seagren.

Seagren, a dancer and puppeteer whose association with Jim Henson is limned at the Muppet Wiki, wore the red-&-blue suit for 29 installments of Spidey Super Stories and a handful of other sketches on what at the time was my personal favorite among the PBS stalwarts of my childhood, The Electric Company, an early mention on the blog.



This Spider-Man never spoke aloud. From his introduction during the cold open in
the October 1974 premiere of the show’s fourth season — moving silently right under the nose of Jim Boyd’s dismissive J. Arthur Crank — Spidey’s Spidey would encourage viewers to read by communicating via word balloons or thought bubbles that popped up overhead (not silently but with an odd bleep, quack, or boing). His speech had mixed-case letters, as in everyday handwriting, and they were crudely done. I’ll say the same for most of the illustrations the segments used for transitions and backgrounds, which is a shame given that Marvel’s art director and classic Spider-Man artist John Romita was apparently in consultation with the show.

The Spidey segments began with the opening of a mocked-up comic book, sporting a Romita-style Spider-Man on its cover, and it framed the actors within panels on a page. Win Mortimer drew the interiors under Romita covers for the Spidey Super Stories monthly that Marvel launched on newsstands in July 1974 in conjunction with Children’s Television Workshop, mixing guest appearances by friends and foes known to fans of his extant four-color exploits (Captain America; Doctors Octopus and Doom) with other familiar Electric Company figures who sometimes crossed into his segments on TV as well (cleverly named detective Fargo North, Decoder; Jennifer of the Jungle).

That publication outlived the six original seasons of The Electric Company by several years — greatly expanding its usage of the Marvel Universe pantheon while eventually receding to bimonthly release — but carried to the end on every cover a small head shot of Morgan Freeman’s Easy Reader above the testimonial “Easy Reader says, ‘This comic book is easy to read!’”



Danny Seagren left us this past November at 81. Per obituaries like the one at the Legacy website, his family has suggested that donations in his name be made to support performing artists via the Entertainment Community Fund; mine was hardly commensurate with the role Seagren played in sparking my lifelong adoration of costumed adventurers. His lithe, deliberate movement as Spider-Man contributed mightily to a thrilling air of mystery reinforced in the feature’s memorable theme song:

Spider-Man —
Where are you comin’ from, Spider-Man?
Nobody knows who you are

Which reminds me that I need to share my tale of meeting a certain Star-Spangled Avenger in the flesh and, to his surprise, knowing exactly who he was.


Blam’s Blog composites: BSL. Screenshots from ’Spidey Teases Crank” sketch,
episode unknown; Spidey Super Stories 2.02 “Spidey Meets the Prankster”; and the
opening sketch of The Electric Company 4.01 © 1974, 1975 CTW. Inset of prop and
cover to Spidey Super Stories #1 © 1974 and character of Spider-Man ® Marvel.

Related: 1st Issues • Envisioned • No Small Parts • Deep Sit • Hope of Good Capes