- Title: Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends – Quest of the Red Skull
- wiki: link
Today’s Throwback Thursday post takes us back to 80s Saturday morning cartoons and the world of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. The Spider-Friends help out Professor Hiawatha Smith (Michael Ansara) whose apartment is ransacked by the goons of the Red Skull (Hans Conried) for the Scorpio Engraving which will lead the villain to the lost Nazi treasure. Smith is armed with the the mystic knowledge of the Native American nations and a trusty boomerang. A character created for the show, Smith makes his only appearance here helping the Spider-Friends track down the Red Skull both to the location of the treasure (inside a temple with a single booby-trap) and later to Skull Island.
The Red Skull is an interesting choice of villain for the show, and the episode is littered with a disturbing number of swastikas (including a scene where one of the Spider-Friends purposefully carves one into the side of the mountain). I doubt this episode would make it air today, without some major rewrites. There’s also some odd jumps and head-scratchers in the episode. Such as how did the Red Skull get all of the Nazi treasure from cave to fit in that one truck, which is even smaller when it turns into a submarine, and why did he just so happen to have items to specifically neutralize the powers of Iceman (Frank Welker) and Firestar (Kathy Garver), neither of whom he was expecting? The character’s trademark skull works well, but putting him an ascot is certainly an unusual choice. Opening and closing the episode are sequences showcasing how hard the super-hero life is on love as Peter (Dan Gilvezan) loses his latest love to Flash Thompson (Welker). Poor Spidey.
