Spider-Man (1967) Episode Eighteen: Fountain of Terror / Fiddler on the Loose

Fountain of Terror

First Aired: January 6th, 1968

Synopsis: In a Spanish fort in Florida, Curtis Connors believes he has found the Fountain of Youth, but is attacked by an anachronistic Spanish Conquistador before he can investigate further. His disappearance is soon reported by his wife, and makes its way to the Daily Bugle. Peter Parker heads down to Florida to investigate, and after talking to Martha and Billy Connors, finds out that his old foe, Clivendon, is looking into what Curtis Connors was researching before his disappearance. Shortly after Spider-Man heads into the jungle, he finds out that Billy Connors has followed him there.


Spider-Man and Billy make their way through the jungle, along the way encountering quicksand, alligators, and, several times, Clivendon. They eventually reach the Spanish fort Curtis is locked in at around the same time as Clivendon. While Spider-Man fights Clivendon, Billy frees Curtis. After Spider-Man defeats Clivendon, the Conquistador who locked up Curtis tries attacking the heroes with a cannon, but misses and destroys the Fountain of Youth instead. He flees shortly afterwards. When Spider-Man talks to Curtis, Curtis reveals that the Conquistador was Ponce de Leon.

Webbing Does Not Work That Way:

• This episode features the example which most people probably think of when they think of Spider-Man's ridiculous webbing tricks from this series - a webbing motorboat.  
  Seriously, look at that thing.
  

Miscellaneous Notes:

• I know that this is far from the only cartoon to do this, but when the alligators appear, they swim towards Spider-Man with their mouths eagerly open. From what I understand, alligators and crocodiles usually stealthily approach prey and then lash out in one vicious attack.
• Curtis Connors has a British accent in this story. When I went back to see whether he'd gained it between his last appearance and this one, I found out that he did actually have it back then, but it was hard to catch since he only had a few lines.

Review: While it may not exactly be a typical Spider-Man story, I'll give the story this: the Fountain of Youth isn't a bad hook for an adventure story, and tying it in with an existing character - Connors, in this case - is good use of continuity. Throwing in Clivendon as the villain is a good choice too - he's got the whole hunter theme going for him, so he feels at home in a setting like this much more than, say, Mysterio. On the topic of Clivendon, while he's still shitty knock-off Kraven, I definitely enjoyed him a lot more in this episode compared to his last one, probably because there was less overt racism around this time.

While the actual adventure aspect of this episode is pretty much what you'd expect of an episode of this show - Spider-Man gets into a sticky situation, then gets out of it, rinse and repeat - I felt that it was brought down quite a bit by Billy being the tagalong kid. There's never really a satisfying answer given for why Spider-Man doesn't turn around and take him back home once he does show up, and he doesn't really contribute anything. I guess if I want to be generous I could say that he frees his father, but then Curtis doesn't really contribute anything that required him to be out of his cell right away, so it's not really enough to redeem Billy for me. I realise that Billy was added in so that the target audience could imagine themselves working alongside Spider-Man, but, well...I'm not part of the target audience.

Overall, the most enjoyment I got out of this episode was from seeing the unexpected continuity therein - both Connors and Clivendon reappearing. I wasn't expecting much continuity from this show, but whenever solid continuity appears in anything, I'm always happy - it makes the world feel more realistic to me and helps to acknowledge the fans who are interested in that sort of thing. Outside of the continuity in this episode though? Pretty average, overall.

Fiddler on the Loose

Synopsis: A band known as the Squawkers are in the middle of a performance. Nearby, a shadowy figure pays the fiddle, and upon the sound reaching each member, they disappear. Spider-Man is nearby and sees it happen, and he too is attacked directly by the noise. When he investigates the apartment where the noise came from, he finds it empty other than a piece of paper titled From Bach to Beethoven. Nearby, the old man who had been playing the fiddle complains about how Flintridge, the producer of the Squawkers, is responsible for the pop music of today and how he will stop him.

The next day, Flintridge tells J. Jonah Jameson that the fiddler is extorting money from him. Although he pretends to pay the money and Spider-Man is nearby to try and stop the fiddler when he takes the money, the fiddler is able to stop Spider-Man. He soon demands even more money, which Flintridge does pay this time and when Spider-Man shows up to confront the fiddler, he is successful this time in delaying the fiddler until the police arrive. Flintridge reveals that he recognises the fiddler, because he also employs the symphony which he was formerly a member of.

Review: Again, there's not a lot going on in this episode. I do like that the villain uses a musical instrument for a weapon - it's not unheard of in fiction, but it's not common, either - since it gives us a bit of a different threat Spider-Man has to deal with. Unfortunately, the writers can't seem to decide what exactly it does - at the start of the story, the Squawkers are presumably teleported away somewhere, but pretty much every other time there's an explosion when the sound reaches its target.

I recognise that when Miss Trubble had petty reasons for committing her crimes, I found it quite charming, yet when the fiddler has similarly petty reasons, it feels much less so. I think it might be that Miss Trubble was so sincere in her beliefs, whereas this guy comes across as a bit of a prick attacking Flintridge out of spite. And honestly, once you get past his fiddle, what else has he got?

So, yeah. Not a lot to say about this story, really. There's the usual bit with Spider-Man being inexplicably unable to defeat the villain until the climax, which certainly doesn't help matters, but...that's about everything else that I can think to say about this story. It's just kind of...there.