sweasel.com

I prefer this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-qMBS1frkM

And now for something completely different…

Uzbekistan is so broke it has to pay its teachers in chickens.

I was never a Spider Man fan, never saw the cartoon. The comic books left me cold, for reasons of bad art, particularly Uncle Fat Head.

I had a special affection for that theme song because the composer was Paul Francis Webster (and the cartoon credits listed his full name). My name is Bruce Francis Webster, and let me tell you, growing up in the 60s with a first name of Bruce and a middle name of Francis was no piece of cake.

What I didn’t know until just this very minute is how many classic songs he wrote, including three Oscar-winners. Here is my one allotted link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Francis_Webster

Cheer up; it could’ve been “Gaylord.”

I, too, found out about Webster and his Oscar when I Googled the theme song.

Wow, Webster was a prolific song writer and most very good and memorable, too.

My nerves have gone to pieces
My hair is turning gray
All I do is drink black coffee
Since my weasel’s gone awayyyyyyyy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjOoD94ucEQ

But Stoaty—you were just a little stoat when Spiderman was on the television. I don’t remember the show. But I was a teenager and my mother had gone back to college, so the TV was rarely turned on in our house. I did listen to the Adventures of Chickenman every day at noon on the radio. He’s Everywhere! He’s Everywhere! (while sitting in the parking lot of the Tweety Burger! I kid you not)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickenman_%28radio_series%29

Not that little, Deborah! I was seven when Spiderman debuted. Which probably makes me the exact target audience.

I ‘member Chickenman, too. But…I think a cartoon version?

I have just read a Jewish writer deconstructing Superman as a very Jewish creation ‘from the planet Minsk’ and inescapably a product of the Jewish American experience at the time he… um, leapt out of a phone booth for the very first time.

As the scales fell from my eyes (I was an avid Superman fan as a boy – unusual in England in that era) I was left wondering WTF that left Spiderman.

“You eat one lousy foot and they call you a cannibal. What a world!”

The Big Bus, 1976

“…I bet the theme song is going through your head right this moment…”

An ear-worm a day keeps the web-swinger in play…

I used to run around in a home-made Superman outfit. Does that date me?

Regardless of all the above, happy birthday to our favorite furry mammal!

Mojo – speaking from personal experience – running around in a Superman outfit means no one dates you….

I want to see the acrobat picture. Please?

This guy Webster was remarkable. The Wikipedia article says “Shadow of Your Smile,” the “Maverick” theme, “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,” and “The Twelfth of Never” were all his.

Oh, and I remember the radio revival of “Chickenman” in the late ’70s: “Chickenman Returns for the Last Time Again.” Dick Orkin, the voice of Chickenman, is one of my all-time favorite radio voices (he did the Prego “It’s in There” spots, for example).