Spider-Man (1967) Episode Forty-Five: Knight Must Fall / The Devious Dr. Dumpty

Knight Must Fall

First Aired: April 26th, 1970

Synopsis: In New York at night, a theatre is being robbed by two thugs. Unexpectedly, a knight in full-plate armour, claiming to be Sir Galahad, shows up and stops them. Spider-Man shows up shortly afterwards and tries to stop Sir Galahad, but fails to do so. Galahad gets away on a motorcycle which he refers to as his trusty steed. A photo is taken of Spider-Man which makes it look as though he stole the money, and J. Jonah Jameson is annoyed that Peter Parker didn't get a similar photo. Galahad later goes after an armoured truck and robs it, thinking that the money inside it was stolen. Spider-Man tries stopping him once more, but is again unsuccessful.

When Peter later returns to the Daily Bugle, he overhears Jonah talking to a reporter about how a rare sword, supposedly belonging to King Arthur, is going to be arriving at the docks via boat. Going there as Spider-Man, he fights Sir Galahad, who of course is trying to steal the sword. Spider-Man is able to use his webs to knock Galahad into the water, where he can't move efficiently, allowing Spider-Man to capture him in a large web and pull him out.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• When Sir Galahad first meets Spider-Man, he comments that his foe is "garbed like unto a spider", in spite of the fact that spiders aren't, y'know, red and blue. Though I guess Spider-Man does have webs and a logo, so we'll call it a draw.

Review: Sir Galahad is shockingly unhistorical - aside from the fact that King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table probably weren't real, there's the very butchered English he speaks in - but really, would you want him to be accurate to what real knights were like? Of course not; we want a knight-themed villain to fight Spider-Man. And man, is he entertaining.

In spite of his being named after one of the Knights of the Round Table, Galahad acts more like Don Quixote, which is excellent because Don Quixote (both the character and the novel) are both absolutely brilliant. Early on in the episode, everyone is confused about Galahad and what the heck he thinks he's doing, implying that he might just be an insane man who put on some random armour he found. There's even a play based on King Arthur running at the theatre at the start, and I'm disappointed that we never got the reveal that Galahad was an actor in the play.

The fights between Galahad and Spider-Man never outstay their welcome, and while Spider-Man does get defeated in two of them, the first one, at least, feels justified since he's stunned by the electricity from Galahad's lance. Overall, this story manages to avoid pretty much all of the pitfalls that episodes fall into, and I loved it. As mentioned above, we never really find out who Galahad is, which strikes me as a missed opportunity, but that aside, this was some good fun.

The Devious Dr. Dumpty

Synopsis: Spider-Man is taking photos of a holiday parade when a balloon gets released into the air by a clown. Once it's in the air, gas is released from around the place, and while everyone is confused and disoriented, the clown and his two accomplices rob the movie star Rachelle Wells, the start of the parade, of her jewellery. The three of them retreat to a hot air balloon and start escaping, but Spider-Man follows them and reveals that he recognises the clown as notorious thief Doctor Humperdinck Dumpty. Spider-Man is knocked from the balloon, and only manages to survive when he lands on the giant balloon of himself flying in the parade.

As Peter Parker, Spider-Man adds chemicals to his web shooters. He suspects that Dr. Dumpty will be stealing a rare mask from a hotel that evening. When he shows up to the hotel, he's able to blend in with the crowd as there's a costume party going on. He bumps into one of Dumpty's goons, who recognises him, and finds a gas mask in her bad. Just then, Dr. Dumpty releases gas, which Spider-Man resists thanks to the mask. Chasing after Dr. Dumpty and his gang, Spider-Man releases the chemicals from his web shooters, which cause them to all slip over. Dr. Dumpty manages to escape by inflating his hat and using it to drift down to the ground, but Spider-Man chases after him and defeats him regardless.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• As mentioned above, there's a Spider-Man balloon in the parade. Unexpectedly (but not at all unwelcome), there are also balloons of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor, albeit palette-swapped.
• When Dr. Dumpty first appears in his clown disguise, he's got inexplicable green skin. I've mentioned this occurring in several past villains, presuming that it's been the case due to recycled animation from another show. While I don't think I've gone about it too much on the blog past the first few times it happened, it's been something of a pet peeve of mine when it does happen. After the initial robbery, Dr. Dumpty expectedly removes a mask, revealing himself to have Caucasian skin, and that he was never green. This...this has got me thinking a bit about past villains, now.

Review: For a villain with as awful a name as his is, Dr. Dumpty manages to be both fairly competent and entertaining. In spite of the egg theme you'd expect him to have, he ends up using balloons the majority of the time, and actually manages to make it work pretty well. His plans also aren't completely stupid, and he comes pretty close to killing Spider-Man after the parade robbery. Maybe he really did earn that doctorate.

Probably the weakest part of the episode is Dr. Dumpty's motivation can be summed up when Spider-Man first confronts him - he's just a thief, after rare items because that's what thieves want. I'll give it points for not being ridiculous, as with the motivations of some past villains, but it's also ultimately a bit boring, particularly coming right after Sir Galahad.

Still, overall, I can't say I had a particularly bad time with this story. It's pretty average overall, but honestly, given some of the past crap we've had to deal with, an average story can't be taken for granted all the time. On a side note, the animation here (and in the previous story) felt around the same quality of a season one episode, so it looks like that might be jumping around a bit this season.