Spiderman



My childhood was marked by a series of obsessional devotions to various cartoon characters. First, I demanded to be renamed Mighty Mouse. This was then followed by Superman (who didn't last long), then Dangermouse, and then Spiderman. I was so obsessed with being called Spiderman that the teachers at my primary school eventually humoured me, and when they used to read out the roll-call in the mornings, they would call out my name simply as 'Spiderman'. If they didn't call out Spiderman, I would refuse to answer my real name. This is of course on top of the outfit that I wore every evening for hours on end, in which I followed my mother around the town clinging to walls and shuffling between shop doorways.
Frankly, I'm amazed they didn't kill me.

Imagine my joy then to discover that somebody has worked out how to pretend to be Peter Parker for the day, and on a kid's show too. If I had seen this as a child I think I may have exploded with excitement, and I most certainly would have broken the vaccum cleaner trying to build one of my own

3 comments:

Gareth Williams said...

Terrific. What an amusing child you must have been. I loved Spidey too. I used to count the days down to the latest Marvel comic coming out.

worm said...

weirdly I was always underwhelmed by american comics (and I was generally a huge comic fan), as the stories never seemed to get going before they ran out and you had to wait to buy the next issue. But the first record I ever bought was a 7 inch version of the Spiderman theme song, which I used to play on constant rotation as I leapt between the furniture.

'Spiderman, Spiderman, does what ever a spider can - spins a web any size, catches thieves just like flies, Look out!, here comes Spiiiiidermaaaaaaaan'

Brit said...

Not many kids would take the "Spiderman" name demand to school.

Spidey was the coolest. I had one annual which I read over and over. It featured the green goblin, Electro-thingy and Catwoman.