Interview with John Semper, Jr. on 20 Years of Spider-Man The Animated Series

Hi, this is John Semper, Jr., the head writer

and producer of Spider -Man, the animated series.

And you are listening to the Geek Cast Radio

Network. Welcome to the Geekcast Radio Network

latest interview. I am your host, Mike TFG1 Blanchard.

This interview will be featured on Geekcast Radio's

flagship podcast. It will be featured on ToonCast

Classic and ToonCast Beyond. Ladies and gentlemen,

it is November 19th, 2014. 20 years ago to the

day, one of, if not the best, Spider -Man animated

series cartoons came on television. 20 years

ago. I'm too old. And this evening I have with

me Mr. John Semper Jr. Hello, sir. Hello. How

are you, Mike? I'm doing well. How are you, sir?

I'm fine. I'm getting over a little bit of a

cold, but otherwise I'm extremely excited about

the anniversary coming up. Yeah. I can't believe

it's been 20 years. It just blows my mind. It

seems to me like it was just yesterday. and I

have no idea where the last two decades went.

You've been probably locked up in Doc Ock's laboratory

the whole time. Probably. All right, so getting

some background on you, sir, where did you grow

up, and did you always want to be in the television,

writing, producing industry? I always wanted

to be involved in cartoons, because when I was

a kid, as is the case with a lot of people my

age who ended up working in television and film

and fantasy and science fiction. I was a huge

fan of Disney, and I wanted to be a Disney animator.

That seemed like the most wonderful thing in

the world to me. So I always had a strong interest

in animation from probably age five, six. I used

to draw. Fast forward to me coming out here,

I knew that one of my specific targets, I mean,

I'd sort of been, I'd done a little animation

on my own when I was in high school and college

and things of that sort, and I'd become something

of an animation historian. I used to write articles

about animation. Somewhere in my teen years,

I became a big comic book fan. Because Marvel

was just getting going as the Marvel that we

know today when I was going to junior high and

high. In fact, those number one issues were actually

selling on the newsstand in the subway when I

was on my way to school. So it all kind of eventually

converged. But when I came out here, when I came

out here meaning came out to L .A., I knew that

I wanted to. investigate pursuing a job in animation.

So, you know, it was definitely a target for

me. I don't know that I necessarily thought about

TV per se, but that was the best way in was through

the huge amount of animation that was being produced

for Saturday morning television. So that definitely

became a target for me in terms of what I wanted

to do. Absolutely. Now, since we are mainly here

to talk about Spider -Man, we'll get to that

in a second. Your newest project, War of the

Rocket Men, what can you tell us about that?

Well, I found myself organizing a reunion event

to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Spider

-Man series. going to put on a panel. We did

put on a panel at Stan Lee's Kamikaze Expo, which

is kind of a mini comic book convention. It's

getting larger and larger. It's nowhere near

as large as the San Diego Comic Con, but it's

getting pretty big here in L .A. And a good buddy

of mine, Pat Jankowitz, who's an author, he said

to me, why don't you do a panel here? at the

kamikaze expo which was excellent because it

meant that we none of us would have to travel

we're all here and um fortunately i have remained

friends with pretty much all of the main cast

of spider -man they're all good friends of mine

uh which is just a wonderful gift so i called

them all up and they all agreed to do it and

then i thought well all this energy that's going

to be directed toward us and the anniversary.

And it's kind of a shame that we don't have anything

new to promote. I mean, ideally, wouldn't it

be great if Disney had said, you know, John,

we want you to do a sequel to your series. And

then we could have gone out and promoted that.

But unfortunately, I did not get that phone call.

So I thought, well, wait a minute, why don't

we just, why don't I just come up with something

new and get everybody involved? And I asked them

all and they all said very enthusiastically,

yes, we want to do something new with you. And

I was very pleased that they did that. And so

I came up with a project that's really for me

a dream project. I've always had a huge interest

in the Republic serials of the 30s and 40s and

50s. I think that especially the serials of William

Whitney and John English, I think that they're

amazing, just incredibly well directed and brilliantly

done. The special effects by the Leideckers,

working with very little money, and yet they

came out with some amazing effects that look

incredible on screen in the very pre -digital

era. So I've always loved those kinds of serials

and those kinds of films. I've always been intrigued

by the Rocketman character, who later became

known as Commando Cody when they recut all that

stuff and brought it to television. And I thought,

well, why don't I just merge my, you know, just

we're living in this wonderful era where you

can pretty much do whatever you want. You know,

there's Kickstarter and Indiegogo and places

like that. And so, you know, it really was just

a no brainer. I have this wonderful cast. And

I wanted to do this idea. It's very much going

to be in the spirit of the old Rocketman serials.

The piece of artwork that I've generated so far

very much looks like Rocketman. It'll probably

change. The design of the characters will probably

change away from that. But for right now, it

conveys the feeling and the spirit of what I

want to do. So we're going to do a Kickstarter.

or Indiegogo at the beginning of next year. I'm

building up awareness and building up the audience

right now. And for anyone who's interested, you

can go to www .waroftherocketmen .com. And we

also have a Facebook page, which is facebook

.com forward slash waroftherocketmen. Very easy.

Awesome. Yeah, I will have all these links in

the post, ladies and gentlemen, so you can click

on all those as well. You've also done a number

of other works over the years. You were a writer

on The Adventures of Chuck and Friends most recently.

Well, not most recently, but a couple of years

ago. You did Pink Panther and Pals in 2010, Static

Shock. You were a writer on four episodes of

that series. What was it like? I'm going to ask

the age -old question, and I pretty much think

I know what the answer is, but I've got to ask

it anyway. What was it like going from doing

Spider -Man and Marvel stuff to going over to

do a DC character, and are you Marvel or DC as

far as your favorite? Well, when I was very young

and having an interest in comic books, I read

mostly DC. But then when I was in high school,

and as I said, you know, traveling the subway

and buying comics every morning at the subway

kiosk, which I'm sure they don't have anymore,

I became a huge Marvel fan. And I would have

to say that that really trumped. my interest

in DC so that, um, I became very much a Marvel

fan and, and a big fan of Stan Lee's, uh, and

all the early guys, Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby,

um, Johnny. Is it Romita? Romita, I don't know.

Yeah, no one ever knows. I used to say Romita.

So anyway, Johnny Romita, if that's the correct

pronunciation. You know, all those guys. Wally

Wood, Don Heck, all those guys. I really fell

in love with those comic books. And so I'd have

to say that those... And Spider -Man was my favorite

comic. So for me to have ended up controlling

his universe for two, three years was... just

a dream come true. Um, as far as going from Spider

-Man to anything else, um, going from Spider

-Man to static shock, wasn't that much of a transition

because addict shock really is the black Spider

-Man in a way. Um, he's a young kid, he's in

high school, uh, and he has this, you know, secret,

uh, super identity. Um, so that was a pretty

easy transition. And, um, and then, Moving over

to Warner Brothers just in general was easy because

I knew everybody over there. My first gig as

a staff writer was at Hanna -Barbera. And what

I discovered many years later going over to Warner

Brothers was that the entire staff, all the people

at Hanna -Barbera, even the maid, the cleaners,

were all the same people who had worked at Hanna

-Barbera. So it was really every time I turned

a corner, I saw a familiar face. And it was a

huge reunion. You know, every time I got into

an elevator with someone, it was somebody I hadn't

seen in, you know, 10, 15 years. So that was

kind of a neat transition. That was a nice time.

And then seeing Mr. Barbera. He was Mr. Hanna

had passed away, but Joe was still alive. And,

you know, I'd run into him and he remembered

me. And that was kind of cool. So, yeah, it was

fun. Speaking of your Hanna Barbera days. stuff

like which it kind of surprises me because i'm

a fan of this and not a lot of my other friends

are that not a lot of people like scrappy sadly

sad to say not a lot of i love scrappy do i think

you know people say oh he's just put in there

for the kids blah blah blah he's annoying puppy

power sucks and all this and all that and everything

else and i'm like no that was cool you know scrappy

was the kid that wanted to jump in and you you

needed that kind of a personality because scooby

and shaggy were always such damn fraidy cats

i'm sorry to say they are that's their character

sure and you needed somebody like scrappy to

come in that wasn't afraid of it um you know

so just looking at this you've worked on the

new scooby -doo mysteries uh you've worked on

13 ghosts of scooby -doo well that was especially

fun because we had vincent price Oh, on that

show. Talk about that. What was that? What was

that like? And how much as on this, it says you're

doing story. So you wrote two episodes on that,

right? Yes, I did. I did two episodes on 13 ghosts.

How much of the writers got to interact with

the voice actors at that time? Well, being at

Hanna -Barbera. during that era, and that was

the early 80s, was probably the best possible

way that you could get into the business because

all of the people in that building had been in

the business. They were the ones that had made

the cartoons that I had watched as a kid. So

the building was full of history and full of

names of people that I had watched on TV. People

who had worked at Disney. I mean, I could tell

you millions. I don't want to regale you with

too many tales, but it was just a fascinating

time. So anyway, getting started there was spectacular.

I honestly have to say I had never been a huge

Scooby -Doo fan prior to writing on Scooby -Doo.

But that is where my career started. So, you

know, I owe a lot to Scooby. But the cool thing

was you would write a script and you were invited

in to the recording sessions. Now, you were not

really encouraged to say a whole lot. It was

not a situation where the writer was terribly

actively involved in much of what went on. But

you were invited in. You know, there were recordings

going on every day. You would get to sit in and

watch your stuff being recorded. The director

at that time was a very, very fine director,

Gordon Hunt. We just did a tribute to him recently.

Rob Paulson did a tribute at one of his Talking

Tunes podcasts at the Improv. Gordon directed

every cartoon, so he was doing several sessions

a day. Gordon is also a theater director of great

teacher. And he is probably in a lot of ways

equally as well known for being the father of

Helen Hunt. So Gordon was really watching him,

you know, direct the actors and watching the

actors perform the scripts was a tremendous education,

as was every other aspect of being in that building.

Guys were there who had worked for Disney. They

had worked with Bill and Joe when they were at

MGM doing the Tom and Jerry cartoons. Irv Spence

was there. Ray Patterson was there. These are

guys who had worked on Tom and Jerry. Alex Lovey

was there. Alex was the guy who drew, he created

the visual Woody Woodpecker. Walter Lance created

Woody Woodpecker, but he turned to Alex to draw

him up. And Alex was the guy that that that did

that. I remember once I had an old I had a Disney

calendar on my wall, which reprinted a lot of

old images from the cartoons, drawings as well

as, you know, as well as frame blow ups and everything.

And there was a drawing, an actual animation

drawing from Clock Cleaners, which is a famous

Mickey, Donald and Goofy cartoon, classic 1930s

cartoon. And. There was there was a guy working

at Warner's at Hanna -Barbera named Chuck Couch,

very old guy. And he came shuffling into my office.

Now, I'd never spoken to Chuck, really. I never

had any reason to speak to him. So so for him,

walking into my office was kind of a shock to

begin with. And he's peering at the wall and

he's getting closer and closer. And he looks

at this this drawing that was part of the Disney

calendar. And after a while, he kind of shakes

his head and he goes. Yeah, I think that's one

of mine. And that's the kind of thing that would

happen at H &B. It was an amazing time. I wish

I had taken more pictures, quite frankly, because

I don't have really very many pictures of my

time there. But all those guys were real animation

history. Yeah, they were. Alright, so let's talk

about this 20th anniversary. Spider -Man the

Animated Series premiered November 19th, 1994,

as I said, with Night of the Lizard. Yes. You

know, I've gone back and I've watched the series

over and over the last few years, and it really

does still hold up. There's a couple of animation

things that I know... animation aficionados will

kind of oh the red bleeds through too much or

this happens here too much or the 3d animation

doesn't work with it because there are a couple

of times where spidey would it would be a 3d

model animation right when he's swinging through

the city and it doesn't match up with the honestly

i don't care the stories were written so well

and honestly and i've said this before on on

this podcast and and many of my other ones that

i do Spider -Man, the animated series, Iron Man,

Fantastic Four, 94, all of those shows at the

time were what actually made me go out and seek

out comics as a 12, 13, 14 -year -old kid. Yep.

Because before then, as 5, 6, 7, 8 years old,

I was Transformers, He -Man, Mask, She -Ra, Thunder.

For me as a young kid, the only exposure I had

to superheroes was when Superman the movie came

to VHS. Or when Batman 66 reruns. were on television

or when the Super Friends were on TV. And you

worked on Super Friends too, didn't you? Yes,

I did. Yeah. You know, so, I mean, the Marvel

age of animation in the 90s is really what, like,

I used to go into Walden Books and just search

their racks for books. And even back in the 90s,

you know, comics today, they're expensive. Back

in the 90s, you could get a Spider -Man issue

for $1 .25 or less. Mm -hmm. And I'm sure, obviously,

back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, they were

a lot cheaper then, too. But, I mean, just this

whole series, from the voice cast to the animation

to the stories, I couldn't even, just off the

top of my head, three of my favorite stories

are the alien costume, Secret Wars, and Spider

Wars. All good stories. That's good to hear.

Yeah, absolutely. What going into what how much

how much dictation did Marvel give you guys?

Like when you created the series Bible, what

did they say that you had to include? Did they

tell you anything that you couldn't do or? Well,

this this will shock you. Marvel had virtually

no oversight over me. Really? Yeah, none. And

I'll tell you why. Because Marvel was in a state

of complete and total disarray and on the verge

of bankruptcy. And it was a particularly bad

time for comic books. Most of the comic books

at that time, if I may say so, were pretty awful.

Marvel was very desperate at that time. And they

were, you know, they were they were doing all

these crazy things, you know, the clone saga

and killing off Aunt May and all this all this

desperate stuff, as opposed to just writing good

comics. It was almost as if they had kind of

forgotten they'd lost their way. And what happened

was that when the series. When. Marvel Films

Animation was formed, which was a completely

standalone company that was affiliated, if I'm

remembering this correctly, was really affiliated

with New World. Avi Arad was going to roll out,

he had gotten a toy license to Marvel, and basically

the comic books were not going to be able to

support the toy line i mean the comic books at

that time were so were being so unsuccessful

that they really weren't going to propel a toy

line so the whole purpose of the tv shows was

to was to make his toy line be a success which

was not a bad business strategy perfectly viable

business strategy so um All of his attention

and all of our attention was on making the shows

great. And Marvel at that time was really not,

you know, their reputation, the publishing side,

their reputation was not so great that they were,

you know, that they really had anything to say

about what was going to make a cartoon show great.

So I got some notes at the very beginning. I

barely remember. I don't know that I got any

few notes on the first script. But very quickly,

Avi did this really wonderful thing, which is

he just completely disconnected me from them.

He told them they weren't going to have anything

to do with the cartoon show, and he told me they

weren't going to have anything to do with the

cartoon show, and that was that. I had an unprecedented

and tremendously wonderful amount of control

over everything that I ended up doing on Spider

-Man, the animated series. Now, having said that,

the series, the thing about whenever I read stuff

on the web and, you know, it's... You've got

to take it with a grain of salt. This is the

best Spider -Man show, or that's the best Spider

-Man show, or the other one's the best Spider

-Man show. Look, the fact of the matter is that

when we did Spider -Man the Animated Series,

it was the most important thing in the Marvel

Universe, period. And it was the most important

thing simply because the entire success or failure

of the toy line rested on the shoulders of this

series. So whether or not Toy Biz made any money

was directly related to whether or not these

shows were any good, or in fact whether or not

they got on the air, because that was initially

the first big issue. And I'll get into that in

a second. But it just simply was the most important

thing on the planet. And I don't think any other

Spider -Man show since ours has had that kind

of pressure on it. Because they've all come,

you know, in the wake. First of all, they've

all come in the wake of ours. So they've all

come after ours. And then many of them have come

in the wake of the movies. which are clearly

the most important thing in the universe. So,

yeah, you know, but I mean, the last, I don't

know, the last couple of series have come out

after the movies. And so, you know, it's very

hard for a cartoon show now to be the most important

thing in the Marvel universe. But we were. So

that's the first thing. The second thing is that

there had never been. Unless you go back to the

Grant Ray Lawrence cartoons, which are basically

now what we would call motion comics, there had

never been an animated show that had been absolutely

100 % true to the Marvel comic book from which

it had been based, from which it had derived.

We knew that... With Spider -Man, we were going

to attempt to do that, and it had never been

done before. And it had certainly never been

done before with Spider -Man. So there was a

whole lot of stuff that had to be figured out

that I think people take for granted now. Like,

for instance, was Peter Parker going to have

an interior monologue? Now, it's very easy in

retrospect to go, well, of course. But the fact

of the matter is that when you're me, and you're

trying to figure the show out, and you're trying

to figure out what is going to serve you best

dramatically, it's a toss -up. You don't know

whether you want him talking that much, or when

he does interior monologue, is there going to

be reverb, versus when he's saying dialogue,

or is he just simply going to talk dialogue and

never have an interior monologue, or is there

going to be a narrator? All of these things have

to be worked out and they'd never they'd never

been worked out before. So there was a lot of

hard work that went into this first time out.

Now, subsequently, you know, a lot of these things

have been worked out on my show and then in the

movies. And so when someone comes along now and

does a Spider -Man show, there's precedent. They

can point to something and say, well, let's do

that. That works. We didn't have that precedent.

You know, I couldn't point to the Ralph Bakshi

show and go, hey, that really works because,

you know, that that show was incredibly primitive

as much as I enjoyed it when I was a kid. That

was a very primitive show. And the same with,

you know, the Spider -Man and Friends kind of

thing. Very enjoyable shows for what they were.

But we were going to do something that was for

the first time was going to really reflect the

Marvel Universe. Right. Absolutely. Talk a bit

about. I'm noticing looking on here on IMDb and

looking at the different seasons of the show

that I pretty much. Yeah. Seasons two through

five, for the most part, are all like it's almost

like a book. Yes. You know, chapters one through

14 for each of those seasons. Yeah. Talk about

the process of. titling and and doing arcs like

that i mean sure nowadays in in television and

in some cartoons we do have like an overarching

story for an entire season but just the fact

that it the title to me reads like a chapter

in a book yeah so talk about the process of how

those kinds of things worked back then Well,

the process was that I was told not to do it

and I did it. And I was much beloved for having

gone contrary to certainly the network's wishes.

Well, that's another thing. You know, when I

when I again, when I read about some of these

later Spider -Man shows and how wonderful they

are. The fact of the matter is that there had

to be a lot of you know, I really had to to to

fight really hard to. to do things like that.

Because again, there hadn't been any precedent.

There was a little bit of precedent with the

X -Men show. The Lee Walds, Eric and Julia, were

doing a really wonderful job with the X -Men

show. And there was some continuation. There

were some multi -part stories. But on Spider

-Man, I remember Stan came to me once and he

said, you know, John, I always want to do something

called the Spider -Man Diaries. And at the beginning

of the episode, Spider -Man will say, I'll never

forget the time I fought the Green Goblin. And,

you know, and then we'll have the adventure.

And then at the end, he says, and so that's how

I defeated him. And he'll close the book. And

I thought, well, the problem that I have with

that is. that there's no jeopardy because you

know if he's telling you the story and he survived

it and it's in a book it's in his diary then

you know that he came out okay you know and and

i don't i just don't think that that kind of

a framing device is going to work i mean you

know i i understood that it was certainly an

approach but the best thing that happened for

you spider -man fans you young kids was that

I had started out as a young kid myself reading

the comic book. As I said, you know, I'm originally

from Boston, so I'm a kid in Boston. I'm reading

the comic book, picking it up every month at

the kiosk, you know, in the subway. And I was

riveted at these continuing stories. I mean,

there hadn't been anything like that in comic

books. And I thought to myself, well, there really

isn't anything like that on Saturday morning.

So I have an opportunity to replicate for you

youngsters what I experienced when I was reading

the comic book. And that absolutely dictated

to me that we needed to do continuing storylines.

So that's the first thing. It just felt more

Marvel to me. Now, in the first season of Spider

-Man, I wasn't able to do that for various reasons.

When things get started. Everybody wants their

hand in it, and it's a very difficult time. And

there's just a lot of bickering and a lot of

ego clashing. And so the easiest way to get through

that first 13 was to just acquiesce to everyone's

desire to simply tell one story, then another

story, then another story, then another story.

And that was okay with me. I tend to not be a

very combative personality in most cases. So

that went along just fine. But then when the

next 13 came along, a couple of things happened.

The first was that everybody now had a new toy

to play with, which was all the footage that

was coming in. There's a nine -month gap between

writing a show and then seeing film. So for the

first 13, we pretty much wrote that blind. I

don't think we saw a single bit of film during

the writing of the first 13. And then by the

time the second 13 came around, the film started

to come in. So all the egos moved into the editing

room. And they're all battling with one another

over how the thing was going to look. And the

new toy was no longer the stories. Now it's work,

you know. And because it's work. Hand it off

to that writer guy who's in charge of that. So

they kind of left me alone. And then Avi was

cool because I went to him and I said, I kind

of want to do these continuing stories. And he

basically said, yeah, fine. At that point, we

had established a pretty good rapport. And so

he let me. And for me, that's when the fun of

the show began. Now, sometimes I'll read on the

Internet. People say, well, everything fell apart

after the first 13. Well, no, you know, if you

were a kid and you were following it, as I think

kids are capable of doing, I think the stories

got deeper and richer. And I think the relationships

got more interesting. We had, you know, a lot

of, I thought the romances were kind of fun to

play with. And all of this was really much more

the Marvel experience. than the first 13 um so

uh i really think the show took off my favorite

arc is when he's got the six arms and you know

and then the punisher shows up and he's dealing

with a punisher um and i had brought carl potts

in to make sure that we were you know dealing

with the punisher 100 correctly because carl

had had a successful run uh doing the punisher

in the comic books And I actually think we did

the Punisher better than he's ever been done

ever in that in that run. But I mean, there are

a couple of episodes in there where I still watch

it and I can't catch my breath. There's so much

cool stuff going on. So, yeah. And then and then

I've always loved having long. interesting stories

you know i i don't do anything short i'm not

a i'm not a guy who can make short films because

i like long involved complicated stories and

when we got to things like six forgotten warriors

at the end and secret wars you know it just doesn't

get any better than that and uh i don't think

anybody's been able to do that since so yeah

I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, going back and

looking through the list of the episodes, like,

I can't think of one that I don't enjoy in one

way or another. Like, I'm sure if I put my analytical

hat on and, you know, really dig into it and

see if I can find anything that kind of makes

me go. What were they thinking there? I'm sure

I could find something, but just looking through

the episode list and remembering watching this

as a kid and, you know, even watching it now,

it really, really still holds up after all this

time. Well, you want to know something funny?

First of all, I told my writers, and this was

my mandate with the show, was to... always surprised

the viewer so that you would never really be

able to settle in and say, I know what I'm going

to see this episode or I know what I'm going

to see when I turn on Spider -Man. There was

always going to be something interesting and

different and unexpected going on. So that's

the first thing. What happens now when I look

at it, and there are episodes I haven't seen

in 20 years. I'm pretty pleased with how tight

it is and how well it holds together. I had a

phone conversation some months ago with a gentleman,

an actor by the name of Chris Cooper. Chris is

an Academy Award winning actor. He is now playing

Norman Osborn in the new run of movies. So he

is eventually going to be the Green Goblin. I

guess he'll be the Green Goblin in the next movie.

I haven't seen the latest Spider -Man movie,

so I don't know. Maybe he was the Green Goblin

in the most recent one. No, he wasn't. They focused

on Electro. Okay, well, then his Green Goblin

run hopefully will be coming up. And we were

talking Spider -Man. I've known Chris for years,

way, way, way, way, way back. So it was just

so amusing to have him on the phone being a good

friend and to be sitting and talking Spider -Man

with him because he's you know, he's he was coming

to grips with the Norman Osborn character. And

I recommended a few episodes of my series that

he could watch before I recommended them. There

was one in particular that I watched and I was

just astonished at how well done it was. I had

forgotten, you know, you get in the middle of

production and you're your head so involved that

you almost don't appreciate what you've done.

And I had I'd completely forgotten the story,

even though I'd come up with the story. And it

was just so tight. It was a really great episode.

stuck right in the middle. It never would have,

you know, been one of the ones that I would have

thought, hey, this is one of my favorite episodes.

And I wish I could tell you which one it is,

but I still can't really remember it. But it

was one of the ones where Norman was kind of

in the nether world and Harry was now the Green

Goblin. Oh, OK. OK. And, you know, I looked at

it and I thought. damn we were really good we

did a really good job i i maintain that the only

reason that the show is still on the air as it

is sporadically on disney xd is because of the

stories you know the show comes on and right

away you see that it's not in high def it's it's

got that square you know image ratio it's not

widescreen And the animation, you know, let's

face it, it isn't always the best compared to

the kind of animation that's being done today.

But I think the stories are better than anyone

else's, quite frankly. I think the stories hold

together very well. And that's what I was responsible

for. So I'm really proud of that. Now, again,

take this with a grain of salt because it's IMDb.

Yeah. According to them. Yeah. Avi Arad actually

wrote one episode. Do you remember which episode

that is? Or is that just false? It's just false.

I mean, I think it's got me writing three. Yeah.

The last time I checked. There was one time I

got on. This is great because you're giving me

an opportunity to rant and rave about this. Every

time I get on Wikipedia, I see strange names

in the executive producers column. The last time

I got on, there were two women listed in the

executive producers column, as well as Stanley

and Avi Arad. They usually get Stanley and Avi

Arad right. And then and then strange names appear.

For years on IMDb and on Wikipedia, it would

there were three names. It was Stanley Avi Arad

and then a guy named Stanley Liu, L -I -U. And

I would think to myself, who the hell is that?

Because, you know, I was there doing the show

and I don't have a clue who that human being

is. And recently I was going through the credits

and I saw the name Stanley Liu, L -I -U. And

he was a guy, apparently, who produced the 3D

backgrounds. Oh. That had been used, you know,

very, very sparingly in some of the episodes.

For him to be listed as an executive producer

along with Stan and Avi is ludicrous. Because

he was a guy who produced an element. You know,

he wasn't there in the offices. I never met the

man. I think the only person who might have had

anything to do with him was Bob Richardson. So,

you know, look, the team was Stan Lee, Avi Wright,

executive producers. John Semper, Jr., producer,

Bob Richardson, supervising producer, John Colley,

production coordinator. That's the team. So whenever

you see these other names get added or whoever

the hell these people are, they were not in the

room. I never knew these people. And just to

clarify, Bob Richardson was a supervising producer.

Bob Richardson was primarily the person who pulled

all the elements together. And he was. primarily

in charge of the animation and getting the production

shipped and the look and the style and the feel

and all of that kind of thing of the show. So

that was Bob's domain. My domain was the writing,

okay? Right. So anything having to do with the

writing, that's me. Anything having to do with

the animation and whatnot, that was Bob. Yeah,

I mean, it's like you guys are... two sides of

a quarter absolutely you're on one side he's

on the other which is great um i want to talk

about two more things and then we'll kind of

wrap this up okay uh i'm gonna save the man for

last but let's talk about the voice cast because

i have been dying to interview some of these

people i think i i know this is gonna i'm gonna

try not to sound Too much of a creeper here,

but I've had a crush on Jennifer Hale's voice

since I was 14 years old. Well, who hasn't? As

the black cat. Who hasn't? Who hasn't had a crush

on that voice? Yeah. And on her, Jennifer's really

a gorgeous, wonderful lady. She is. Yeah. But

you've got Christopher Daniel Barnes. You've

got Roscoe Lee Brown in this. Yeah. It boggles

my mind that J. Jonah Jameson and Granny Goodness

are the same guy. Ed Hasner. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It really boggles my mind. I was just hanging

out with him about two weeks ago. Oh, please

tell me you recorded that for your podcast. I

did. That was why I was there. Good, good, good,

good, good, good. He did a little tribute for

the panel discussion, and then I also did an

interview with him for the podcast. Oh, good.

Oh, wow. Talk about Linda Gary for a little bit,

because she was the voice of Aunt May. And sadly,

she passed away in 95. Yeah, she passed away

right in the middle of production. Linda was

diagnosed fairly early on. You know, when I first

met Linda, she was just robust and healthy and

big, huge, you know, head of red hair, flaming

red hair, curly red hair. gorgeous and wonderful

and generous and a really lovely lady. And then

as we moved into production, her cancer was discovered

and she underwent chemo and she just got weaker

and weaker and weaker. And, you know, she was

showing up in a wheelchair eventually. And I

would always write a few lines for her just just

have just to have her have work and be able to

be amongst us. I'd always give Aunt May a few

lines. And then one day, I wrote the usual four

lines for Aunt May, and then word came that Linda

wasn't going to be able to make it. uh in for

that session and uh and that was it you know

then we we all kind of knew because she would

come in i think the very last time she came in

she was really very unhealthy and she was very

out of it and she was just barely able to get

the you know the three four lines out and we

all wished her well and uh but she was really

not in very good shape so yes we lost linda um

and and we lost uh a few people during the course

of production Because initially Alistair Smythe's

father, what was the Spencer Smythe? Spencer

Smythe. That was Edward Mulhare. And I had grown

up watching. That was Devin Miles. Are you kidding

me? Yeah, that was Edward Mulhare. Yeah. Oh,

my God. I never knew that. And when I was a kid,

he was he was in a TV show called The Ghost of

Mrs. Muir, which was based on the classic movie.

So that was kind of a thrill for me. And then

I think at that time he was the voice of Kit,

right? No, he was Devin. He was the old guy.

He was Devin Miles. He was the friend to Wilton

Knight who, after Wilton passed, basically was

the one that gave Michael his missions. There

you go. Okay. Yes, so he was... you know, in

our cast. And I remember vividly him being there.

And then he was gone. He died before we we finished

the series. And a number of people passed away.

Philip Abbott was the voice of Nick Fury. And

he passed away, I think, before we were done

with the series. And yeah, I mean, it was really

it was weird. But, you know, we had so many great

old classic actors. people who had just had amazing

careers and that was one of the fun parts of

doing the show was i never knew who was going

to walk in the door next and uh and sometimes

i you know i'm a big star trek fan So naturally,

I requested I wrote roles for all the Star Trek

people. So we had Nichelle Nichols and George

Takei and we had Major Barrett Roddenberry, you

know, with whom I later had a business relationship.

And we had Tim Russ and, you know, and that was

mostly just me being a Trekkie. and saying saying

to our casting person hey get that person find

out if you can get that person and at that time

it was not so common that a lot of these screen

actors were being sought out to do cartoon roles

right so um for them it was really just fun and

you know the fact that they didn't have to learn

lines and stuff like that so yeah no it was a

great cast i i was very lucky Let's talk about

the man, because Stan the Man Lee, was he there

every day? How much input did he, not necessarily

input, but how much involvement did Stan have

since technically it was a character he and Jack

created? Yeah, let me say right up front that

I get really tired of Stan bashing people who

bash Stan. I would never. Yeah, well, and you're

a good guy. That's why I'm here. Stan is a really

amazingly talented man. And as a fan of the comics

from, you know, for me from age 14, 15, and a

fan of his, what he brought to comics was just,

you know, it's unmeasurable. And I'm talking

about him specifically. The artists I have great

admiration for, too, the Ditko's and the Jack

Kirby's of the world. But, you know, Stan really

is a great writer and a great idea person. And

you don't get Marvel without Stan. You know,

all these people who want to claim, well, no,

Jack Kirby really did this and Steve Ditko really

did this. No, you don't get Marvel. You don't

get what we have without Stan. As far as Stan's

input on this show, it was very substantial in

the first 13. I don't know that he necessarily

wanted it to be. I think one of the reasons why

he dragged me in, because I came in at the specific

request of Stan. I was brought in because Stan

wanted me and Stan wanted me because he trusted

me and he trusted me because we had worked together.

years earlier in a different company called Marvel

Productions, and he and I had become very close

during that period of time. So he kind of brought

me in because I think he wanted to actually walk

away from the very difficult birthing process

that the show was going through. But Avi very

much wanted Stan involved. So with a certain

amount of reluctance, I think Stan... did end

up devoting a lot of day -to -day time on the

series in the first 13. I think after the first

13, Stan pretty much is no longer involved with

the series. Well, except for one very important

role at the end. We'll talk about that in a minute.

Okay. Yeah, that's true. That's coming up. But

he really didn't have anything to do anymore

with the day -to -day. Now, the funny thing is,

because I was watching a couple of episodes earlier

today. I was watching Night of the Lizard and

I watched Sting of the Scorpion. And I can tell

you Stan's lines. I mean, I remember. when we

were going through the script reading, and we

would do these really elaborate table reads where

I was there, Stan was there, Avi was there, Tony

Pastor, our voice director was there, Bob Richardson

was there, and we would all fight and argue and

discuss and dissect each and every one of the

scripts. Over hours and hours and hours of meeting.

And, you know, sometimes Stan would just say,

look, we're going to do this. And he'd start

crossing lines out and he'd just write the dialogue

in. I still have some of the scripts where he

wrote his dialogue in. And I remember those lines

because, you know, they're economical and they're

to the point and they're right. You know, those

are good lines. So he had a lot of input in the

first season, the first 13. And then. One of

the most amazing things. I mean, I didn't know

at the time, obviously, because let's face it,

1995, we didn't have the internet yet. Right.

And, you know, nowadays we can look pretty much

anybody up that's been in any of these shows

and whatever else. And going back and watching

the end of... spider wars um the the very last

episode we see that spider -man goes to the real

world where the guy in the suit is just an actor

who plays him on television and it's i don't

want to be analytical about it but when i really

think about it it's very tongue -in -cheek yeah

putting him in the real world putting him in

the real new york and yeah and you know lo and

behold he goes and you know he meets stan lee

and the coolest thing about this and i'm just

tearing up just even talking about it and i wasn't

even you know I had nothing to do with the show

at all. The coolest thing about this is his wife

is Madam Webb. How did you guys pull that off?

Well, that was all me. That was all me. That

was, you know, I first of all, all the whole

plot for that was me. And I got to tell you,

I had to fight because. And certain people in

the production were very hot and bothered about

the fact that Spider -Man was leading up to this

big challenge. Because, you know, I mean, the

whole Madam Web thing and she was preparing him

for something. And no one knew what it was except

me because it was my invention. And that made

a lot of people very unhappy. Not a lot of people.

That made certain people very unhappy. But I

knew what I had in mind for the big payoff. I

wrote, I put Madame Webb in the show for Joan

Lee to play. She was the voice I had in mind.

Now, Madame Webb came from the comic books, but

she was not a character that anybody really would

have ever done anything with. I remember when

I proposed to Avi that I wanted to use Madame

Webb. His pretty much exact words to me were,

I can't make a toy out of a frigging old broad.

So one of my favorite, one of my most cherished

Toy Biz toys is the Madam Web action figure.

because he did actually end up making a toy out

of the old one. And I got a huge kick out of

that. But that was all me. I mean, the fact that

I plucked Madam Web from comic book obscurity

and gave her this very big role. And I knew,

because I am a huge fan of Stan's, and I'm also

a good friend of Stan's, I knew that I wanted

to end the series with an appearance by Stan.

That was completely my idea. And it was, to me,

very important. Now, it wasn't just a gimmick,

because really, and I've said this before in

interviews, when you've got your hero looking

at his creator and saying, you know, I understand

that you created me, or at least in this dimension

you created me, but I've kind of grown beyond

you. You know, I'm bigger now. I really like

myself. For me, that really was the end of the

saga. When the hero accepts who he is and likes

what he's done and likes who he is, then that's

really the end of the hero saga. And it's really

the end of Peter Parker's saga. Because you never

get Peter liking himself in the comic books.

That's just not part of who he is. But I figured,

well, this is probably the last episode. Peter's

going to turn to his creator and say, Hey, Stan,

I like myself now. I'm a different person than

the guy you created. So it really did have a

purpose. But, you know, it also was kind of fun.

It was sort of like back in those days, it wasn't

so common to have Stan be a character in something.

You know, now he's in all the movies and he does

his own cartoon shows where he's a character.

You know, in the pow entertainment stuff. I know

this is morbid, but my favorite Marvel movie

appearance of him is when he drinks the tainted

Hulk serum. Yes. No, I just thought that was

such a great way, even though you left it on

a cliffhanger. yeah you know true believer you

know it's like oh and then come to find out you

have nothing to do with unlimited and unlimited

tried to pick up where it tried to be what you

know a continuation of yours it tried to be that

i mean obvious you know starting off on earth

and then obviously going into the the ultimate

kind of universe kind of thing and yeah still

had most of the same cast at least Chris and

Jennifer, because Jennifer ended up being Lady

Vermon. Well, I never really paid much attention

to Unlimited. I saw the first episode and that

was it. I don't even think I made it through

all of the first episode. I don't want to talk

bad about somebody else's show or anything, but

it's... It was an interesting thing. I think

my favorite part about the show was the new suit

because he could do so much more. But yeah, who

knows? Well, you know, it's funny. I think each

show that has come after mine has done some things

interestingly and right and some things wrong.

And Unlimited to me seemed very lightweight.

coming after our show. Our show was very dramatic,

and then Unlimited seemed more like a kiddie

show, kind of like the one that's on now, which

feels very lightweight to me, too. The one that's

on now, Unlimited, whatever it's called, Ultimate

Spider -Man. I've only seen all of season one.

I haven't watched anything further. It's not

that I don't want to, it's just I don't have

the time to. What I did like about it is how

they worked out the internal monologue where

he pops out of the scene. I thought that stuff

was hilarious in that show. Yeah, I think, you

know, the thing about that show is I think it's

a very enjoyable show. It's just a very different

show. And I'm glad that I'm not writing that

show because that's not really the Spider -Man

I grew up with. I think what they're doing is

they're creating a new Spider -Man for a new

generation and a new way of telling a story.

And that's perfectly legitimate. I'm glad I got

to lay down. on you know on film on 65 half hours

the spider -man i grew up with um that's the

guy you know in the 60s when i was reading the

comic that's who i grew up with and so i got

to lay that guy down for 65 wonderful episodes

and now you know they can go do whatever they

want and and you know it'll serve whatever purpose

they need for it to serve so One last thing before

you go. I know this has kind of gone over the

time we agreed upon, but anyway. That's okay.

You recently, on your Spider -Man The Intermediate

Series Facebook page, posted an image of yourself

along with Alfred. Yes. Ephraim Zimbliss Jr.

Right. I, again, this is another one of those

things where I had no idea. I knew I loved Doc

Ock's voice, but I had no idea it was Alfred.

Well, let me, you know, I'm glad you brought

up the Facebook page, and let me talk about that

for one second. Okay. Go ahead. The question

I always get is, when is Spider -Man going to

come out on DVD? Or when is Spider -Man going

to come out on Blu -ray? Well, the reality is...

that Spider -Man is available on DVD and is available

on Blu -ray, believe it or not. I have a page,

I have a website that is www .cartoonspiderman

.com. So it's www .cartoonspiderman .com. Now,

on that page, I have a section called Home Video.

And it provides links to all of the different

ways that you can obtain all 65 episodes. I have

no vested interest in this. It's just, you know,

people are always asking me that question. When's

it going to come out? The fact of the matter

is you can get a hold of the series on Blu -ray,

on DVD, on video on demand, which I highly recommend

through Amazon or iTunes. OK, what you won't

get. In any of these ways. are dvd extras what

we come to regard as dvd extras okay so you won't

get any artwork you won't get any you won't get

any stuff you won't get any photos you won't

get anything like that that's what my website

is going to do okay so if you're if you buy one

of those dvds and then you go to my website cartoonspiderman

.com I'll have all the background stuff that

you would normally get on DVD extras. For some

odd reason, Disney does not want to do a formal

release. I mean, wouldn't we all love a deluxe

package of all 65 episodes with director's commentary,

you know, commentary by me, commentary by Bob

Richardson, commentary by Avi, if they can get

him to do that. Or Stan. Or Stan. You know, wouldn't

it be great to have that? I don't know why Disney

doesn't seem interested in doing that, but they're

not. But what I'm going to do is is on my page

and in my podcasts, I'm going to have interviews

with all the people involved, all the people

that I can get a hold of who are involved. I

have all my actors who are going to do interviews.

I'm I'm probably going to do some commentary

to go along with some of the episodes. So. It's

permanently going to sit on my Web page. A lot

of it's going to appear on the Facebook page,

which is www .facebook .com forward slash Making

of Spider -Man the Animated Series. I could not

get any other title that hadn't already been

taken. So it's forward slash Making of Spider

-Man the Animated Series. And all of those pictures

are going to turn up initially on the Facebook

page and then sit permanently on my website.

So there you go. I don't know what it is. This

will be the last thing. I don't know what it

is about Disney. They put out X -Men. They put

out Iron Man. They put out the Incredible Hulk.

They've put out basically everything except Spidey.

I always feel like they're doing that just to

piss me off, quite frankly. But I think that

there were some rights issues that needed to

be ironed out. At least before Disney bought

Marvel, I think there was some conflict between

Marvel and Sony over my series in particular.

Well, there shouldn't be anymore since Disney

owns Marvel. Right, exactly. I really don't understand

why they haven't released it. But, you know,

I'm taking matters into my own hands and I'm

celebrating the 20th anniversary on my own. You

know, because people like you who because of

people like you who really enjoyed the series

and got the series understood what we were doing

and appreciated what we were doing, for which

I am tremendously grateful. I always read articles

about myself where I'm told people talk about

how horrible or arrogant I am and this, that

and the other. The people who work with me seem

to think I'm just fine. And I always want to

make the point that I'm tremendously grateful

to the fans for all of the wonderful support

that they have given us over 20 years. You know,

this old 20 year old show still seems to resonate

with people. And I'm the most grateful person

on the planet. Yeah, absolutely. All right, folks,

all the links that John has mentioned throughout

the interview will be. in the post, so you can

go to every single one. You can go to his CartoonSpiderMan

.com. You can go to the Facebook page for Spider

-Man the Animated Series, making of Spider -Man

the Animated Series. You'll be able to go to

the War of the Rocketmen page and all that stuff.

I'll have all the links in the show notes so

you can check all the stuff out that he's got

going on. Thank you so much for doing this. This

has been a blast. Mike, thank you for having

me on. I appreciate it. Thanks. Who is that exotic

lady? Oh, her? She's my ride. It's been great

meeting you. Take care of yourself. You too,

Spider -Man. Farewell and good luck. Wow, I wonder

how I'm supposed to get down from here. I suppose

I could wait for the Fantastic Four to drop by

and give me a lift. That's Stan Lee. He's quite

a guy. I think he's truly special. Well, Madam

Webb, where to now? Face front, true believer.