Spider-Man (1967) Episode Thirty-One: Pardo Presents

Pardo Presents

First Aired: November 23rd, 1968

Synopsis: In the middle of the night, a giant black cat stalks the city, somehow managing to steal jewels and gold using some sort of strange electronic ray. It returns to its master, a green-skinned man named Pardo, who is planning on robbing the city's upper-class. The next night, Peter Parker and a girl named Polly go to the premiere of a Pardo Productions film named My Pet. Inside the theatre, gas shoots out of the screen and everyone except Peter is paralysed, unable to move unless Pardo commands them to. Peter changes to Spider-Man and goes to the screening booth where Pardo is while he tries to get his assistants to take money from everyone.

The money stolen from the audience and Pardo himself disappear into the screen, and Spider-Man soon follows. He finds himself in a water tower atop the theatre, filled with the valuables. Outside it is Pardo's giant cat, which is fighting the military. Spider-Man cuts his way out of the water tower using a diamond from the loot, and then leads the cat on a chase to the Brooklyn Bridge. There, he attaches his web to the electric train tracks nearby, and when the cat touches the web, it disappears. In the aftermath, Pardo's clothes are all that's left, and Peter speculates that Pardo could turn into energy and was both the cat and the green-skinned man.

"Spidey Swinging to Pad the Episode" Montages: Two, by my count, as well as a crazy-long drawn out animation loop of gas shooting out at the cinema.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• A bob cut? Dark hair? Peter Parker's age? Why it's none other than one of his earliest love interests - Polly! Wait, who? (Seriously, you would not believe how much she looks like Betty Brant).
• To explain why Peter and Polly are at the film's premiere when Pardo is explicitly targeting rich people, Peter says that he got a ticket because he "[has] friends in high places," and that "one of them is a real swinger." The implication being, of course, that because he's Spider-Man, he was able to get a ticket...but unless he stole it from someone, this makes no sense.
• The climax of the episode takes place at the Brooklyn Bridge, which, being the Spider-Man fan I am, immediately causes me to think of one of the most famous Spider-Man stories of all - Amazing Spider-Man #13, where Spider-Man first fought Mysterio.

Review: Well, it doesn't leap at the first opportunity it gets to throw Spider-Man into another dimension or time period, so you can leave that bingo box unchecked, but that doesn't mean that this episode is particularly remarkable. When the episode started I thought we'd get something kind of like the Phantom's living shadows, but it soon turns into wacky energy nonsense. The cat can walk up any wall...but it can also shoot out electronic rays to steal things...it's also giant...and it's also probably Pardo himself. How many drafts did this script go through? (I suspect the answer is one).

The episode itself is also pretty poorly paced, which is never a good sign. This feels like it easily could have slipped into one of the first season's half-episode stories, particularly towards the end when Spider-Man was leading the cat away (incidentally, this is where I identified what I think of as the montages for padding purposes). So much here just drags on and on when there's so much more better things we could be doing. Establish a personality for Polly! Show us how Peter gets the tickets! Show us J. Jonah Jameson! Give us an origin for Pardo! I know, I know, animation limits...but I can't give everything a free pass because of it.

The good things? Spider-Man escaping the water tower with a random piece of loot is fairly clever, if you assume that the tower isn't made of wood. I appreciate that we get an explanation for why Peter has a ticket to the high-society event, even if it's a lazy one that wasn't thought out. The way the villain is defeated isn't the absolute worst that's been done on the show. Am I scraping the bottom of the barrel for these high points? You betcha.