MYTH DEBUNKED: Spider-Man: The Animated Series was NOT Censored as Much as Everyone Believes

 

By: Jack Martin 
Article last updated on August 16th, 2022  

^^^"Spider-Man: The Animated Series" was an animated television series based on the Marvel Comics superhero of the same name. The series aired on the Fox Kids Network from November 19, 1994, to January 31, 1998, for a total of five seasons comprising sixty-five episodes. The series was produced by Marvel Films Animation and animated by Tokyo Movie Shinsha. 

Today we will be covering the Spider-Man: The Animated Series Censorship myth. This myth is so old that it actually pre-dates social media and the Internet itself. This myth has been able to survive and find its way around the web for many, many years, but today we will debunk it once and for all. ***(I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors you may find while reading this report.)*** Now, let's get into it.

-Who started this myth?

The answer will shock you. Continue reading to find out.

^^^Here is a photo of Stan Lee and John Semper Jr. (Right). John Semper Jr. is a screenwriter, producer and story editor with numerous credits in animation for television. Semper was producer/story editor of Spider-Man The Animated Series and the man who started this myth. Yes, you read that correctly. This myth was started by Semper. And why? Well, I could tell you myself, but  I'll just have John Semper tell you.

^^^Here is an interview Jon Semper did back in 2016 with Amazing Spider-Talk. At the 54:30 mark of this video is when Semper debunks this myth.

Now, if you don't have time to listen to that part of the interview here is all the info you'll need in written form from John Semper, Producer/Head writer of Spider-Man: The Animated Series:

"Here's something I wrote six years ago for my Facebook page and it's still pertinent today. It has to do with censorship:

Examine this picture carefully. It accurately depicts everything we were NOT ALLOWED to do on a cartoon show in the mid-nineties. A patently FALSE RUMOR was started some years ago that, on "SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES," we suffered from a great deal of CENSORSHIP by the network. This FALSE RUMOR has since been perpetuated by sources like Wikipedia (a veritable cornucopia of flawed and false information) and such bastions of misinformation as online critics. This FALSE RUMOR always frustrates me. I'd like to get my hands on the IDIOT who started that rumor. Oh, wait a minute. It was ME!

You see, when I appeared at fan conventions way back when the show was still on the air, JUST for fun and entertainment, I would read notes that I got from the network's Broadcast Standards and Practices Department. Things like, "Be careful that when Spider-Man lands on the roof, he doesn't harm any pigeons." Funny stuff like that. I thought it was good for laughs. But apparently, the whole notion of getting notes from BS&P was so completely foreign to you folks out there that it hit you all by surprise. What I thought was a silly joke suddenly became A BIG REVELATION!

My second mistake was not realizing that, one day, there would be this monster called "The Internet." And the Internet soon would be so hungry for things to talk about that it would take this little bit of information and blow it up all out of proportion. It didn't help that the Internet also would become a tool for the ignorant and uninformed (like certain online "nostalgic critics"- oh, okay, specifically "The Nostalgia Critic") to make money off of being hyper-critical of everything under the sun, whether it deserves it or not. So, this little bit of information - that my cartoon show was subject to review by the Broadcast Standards and Practices Department - got turned into a major criticism and then a war cry: "Spider-Man has CENSORSHIP! LOTS AND LOTS OF CENSORSHIP!!"

Now, you might ask, "Why isn't it true?" Well, to begin with, the BS&P department placed the same restrictions on EVERY cartoon show on the air in exactly the same way. So, if you think about it, all of the shows were limited in certain ways as to what they could do or show. There were rules that we all had to play by, as shown in the illustration. That's why, for instance, on "X-Men," you never saw Wolverine use his claws on anybody human and rip them to shreds. Usually he'd just swipe at mechanical robots and stuff like that. Producers, writers, etc., all had to play by the same rules. As a show creator, you could always argue with BS&P for some things more than others. A punch in the face might slip by here. A fire causing jeopardy might happen there. But basically, every show had to deal with the same fundamental restrictions. Those were the rules of the game.

Where did those rules come from, anyway? Let me take you back to the nineteen-sixties. After the successive assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, it was decided by the powers-that-be that all television was too violent, and, in particular, children's TV was too violent for kids to watch. Remember when someone could shoot a gun at Huckleberry Hound and the resulting gunpowder would blacken his face? Or when Quick Draw McGraw wore guns and often used them? That's what I'm talking about. So, suddenly, very stiff restrictions were placed on TV cartoons that remained in place for decades to follow.

So here's why all the whining and complaining about "censorship" drives me crazy. Because, in the nineties, we were finally allowed to do things in action-adventure cartoons that we hadn't been able to do for decades. Starting with "Batman," and moving on to "X-Men," "Spider-Man," et al, the Broadcast Standards and Practices Departments were finally loosening the shackles just a bit and allowing us to be more violent than kids' TV had been for most of my lifetime. And that, my friends, is how you got the exciting "Spider-Man:TAS" show that you got, instead of "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and Puppies."

Therefore, instead of complaining about a gun having to look like a "laser rifle" as opposed to a real gun, you ought to be reveling in the fact that we were finally able to do stories that approached the sophistication of the comic books.

But now you might be asking, "Yes, but how can you say you weren't censored when BS&P clearly told you what you could and could not do? Isn't that a form of censorship?" Again the answer is a resounding "NO." I wasn't hired to do whatever the hell I wanted. I was hired to deliver to the network a show that was what they asked for - BUILT TO THEIR SPECIFICATIONS. They were the client and I was the hired help.

Let's say that you are a house builder, and you're hired to build a house, and you want to paint it green, but the person who is hiring you wants the house to be red. You can't scream "Help, I'm being censored. I can't paint the house the color I want!" It's not your house! You just shut up and paint it red! End of story. It's the same with "Spider-Man TAS" or any of the other cartoon shows on their network. Ultimately, the Network was paying for the show. They were hiring me to deliver the show to their specifications. It's their show. If they tell me to do something, then ultimately it's my job to do it. I can't legitimately scream "Censorship!" And neither can you.

"Censorship" is when you do have a right or an understanding, or a reasonable expectation of freedom of personal expression and it is suddenly blocked or curtailed. That isn't the case when you're hired to deliver a show to a client's specifications. It's not what you agree to when you sign a contract to work-for-hire.

"Censorship" is when I take my own money and pay to have something produced, and I put it online and it suddenly gets pulled down against my will because somebody doesn't like some aspect of it. That's censorship.

Bottom line: We did NOT have "so much censorship" on Spider-Man: The Animated Series. Spread the word." -John Semper Jr.

^^^ You're all probably thinking: "If the show runner of "Spider-Man: The Animated Series" has already debunked this myth, and is also the person who started this myth, how is this still even a thing?" Answer: The Internet. People on the Internet don't want this myth to die because they want it to be true. Now, their motivations for why they want this myth to live on are unknown by this writer, but it's a fact. As you can see by the images above...Semper continues to debunk this myth still do this day. Only time will tell if his efforts to debunk this myth will be successful, but from what I know about these myths and how they get spread across the Internet, I have a feeling Semper will have to continue to post about it for years to come. Hopefully you (the reader) will help him out by posting this report the next time you see this myth online. 

So just to wrap up...Spider-Man: The Animated Series was NOT censored as much as everyone believes. Case closed. 

Please share this report with your friends, family, social media followers, co-workers or anyone else you think would enjoy it. If you are a member of the media and would like to re-post this report on your website or blog feel free to contact me via email [ at reddeadpl@gmail.com  ] . Thanks for reading!