The Lost Marvel Team-Up: Spider-Man and Planned Parenthood!

[andrewfarago]

{Editor's Note: Just got back from Comic-Con to find out that Boing-Boing has linked to this. If any of you who are just now discovering this can make your way over to WilliamBazillion.com to check out my webcomic, I'd appreciate it. Thanks

Comments

[evilbobrex]

I love this until we get to the part about homosexuality in which a dislike of people of that ilk is displayed. Don't worry kids, just because you have sex fantasies about your same sex friends, it doesn't mean you're gay. I know, it's a little thing, but it stuck out at me almost as much as "galloping guacamole".

[andrewfarago]

Considering that the pamphlet is 30 years old, it's actually less judgmental than I'd have guessed.

Then again, the extent of my knowledge of America's view of gay culture in the 1970s is pretty much limited to Paul Lynde, Elton John and Three's Company, so I'm probably not the most reliable resource available.

[evilbobrex]

thanks for that tagger, it made my day.

[brandiweed]

Well, the American Psychiatric Association only took homosexuality out of the DSM in 1973, so...

[feech]

In running down the list of Spider-Man appearances... did you see the Spidey sequences on the _The Electric Company_ kid's show? The one, for example, where he thwarted a Sasquatch who was sitting on people's ice cream cones?

[andrewfarago]

I watched The Electric Company every weekday, and read the Spidey Super-Stories in Electric Company Magazine every month.

I'm still upset that the soup-can-crushing villain (who was searching for his long-lost pet frog, if I remember correctly) managed to knock Spidey out and escape. That guy's been at large for over 25 years now, and still hasn't been brought to justice.

****

I just looked this up online to see if I could find any information about that episode, and my memory of the whole thing is eerily accurate:

"The Can Crusher"

Date Unknown - Cast: Jimmy Boyd as The Can Crusher.

When the Can Crusher was just a little boy, he visited a soup factory and his pet frog jumped into a vat of tomato soup. Obsessed with finding his lost pet, the Can Crusher ventured forth in a black jumpsuit w/crazy hair & red nose, invading supermarkets and such, crushing every can he could get a hold of. Spider-Man never caught this one. The Can Crusher defeated him in battle and escaped.

[feech]

There are many lines from Electric Company that somehow found their way into my daily repertoire, and now that you mention the Can Crusher I remember it too! Only I don't think I'm as attached to Spidey winning/losing, so it didn't stick in my craw that way. Frankly, I was a bit intimidated by Electric Company Spidey. The villains were more clearly motivated in my view at the time, because it was always told how they "turned to a life of crime". I seem to recall him teaming up with Letterman at some point.

Could the escaped Can Crusher be someone we all know if the disguise were removed? For some reason I begin to wonder if his secret identity is now well-known. There's a fanfiction in that somewhere.

[johnwwells]

[daphneqevuh]

" "I'll come," said she, and they shook hands solemnly. Thereafter Our Square felt a little more lenient toward her ministrations, and even those of us who least approved her activities felt the stir of radiance and color which she brought with her.

[adam_0oo]

Wow man, that was excellent. Not just for the highly dated Spider-man lingo, but for fairly valid talking points. That third to last page, written over 30 years ago, is still alot more than alot of people know, and that is a damn shame. Spider-man can rap about it, but alot of public school kids can't hear about it.

[nohatmatt]

Really? I was taught this stuff in school years ago.

Of course, we don't have an abstinence programme substituting for real knowledge in the UK.

[adam_0oo]

Well, so was I pretty much, but I was talking more about the kids these days, old man that I am, many of whom do not have proper sex ed. The answer to all of kid's questions is to not have sex.

Also, dig the OOTS icon.

[nohatmatt]

Thanks! I drew it myself. It's possibly the only successful thing I've ever drawn.

[bougieman]

Amazing find! I really enjoyed reading that.