Marvel's Spidey and His Amazing Friends is a 2021 American animated series based on the titular Marvel Comics character and his side of the Marvel Universe. The series is an uncharted first for Marvel Animation: a full-length animated pre-school series for Disney Junior, starring one of their most recognizable heroes.
Though Peter Parker isn't alone in his web-slinging heroics, as he's joined by his amazing Spider-Friends: the high-gliding drummer Ghost-Spider (Gwen Stacy), the artistically minded Spin (Miles Morales), and their respective spider bots named TRACE-E, TWIST-E, and TWIRL-E. Team Spidey must hone their super abilities to help and defend New York City community from evildoers, while also learning the value of teamwork amongst themselves, and other notable Marvel heroes, such as Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Black Panther, Ms Marvel, and many more.
The series debuted
on August 6th, 2021, as a simulcast on Disney Channel and Disney Junior. The series opening, performed by Patrick Stump (who is also the series' composer), was unveiled by Entertainment Weekly on June 8th, 2021. Official YouTube mirror found here.
From June 21-25, a series of introductory shorts known as Meet Spidey and His Amazing Friends were released on Marvel HQ and Disney Junior's YouTube pages. The first episode was officially released for free on August 7th.
Despite similar concepts and title, this is not to be confused with Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. It is also not to be confused with the similarly named Spidey or Spidey Super Stories.
This show provides examples of:
- Age Lift: Most characters are depicted as being much younger. This is especially true for our spiders, who are all pre-pubescent children.
- All-CGI Cartoon: The general visual design of the series is rendered in cartoony 3DCG, though it's not the first full-length Spider-Man television series to do so.
- Breaking Old Trends: Unlike previous Marvel full-length animated shows, this series consists of two 11 minute segments instead of one 22 minute episode. Also, none of the supporting superheroes' usual voice actors from Avengers Assemble reprise their roles.
- Cat Up a Tree: In the intro, Spidey is seen recovering Aunt May's pet cat Bootsie from being stuck in a tree.
- Character Name and the Noun Phrase: Spidey and His Amazing Friends.
- Character in the Logo: As seen in the intro, Spidey concludes the intro by landing on top of the series title logo itself in his famous crouching posture.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience:
- Spidey has his white webbing, though Gwen and Miles shoot out violet and red colored webbing respectively.
- This philosophy extends to each Spider's equipment, matching their suit colors.
- Edutainment Show: It's a Disney Junior show aimed at preschoolers after all, so this is a must. Much like its contemporaries such as PJ Masks, this series aims to teach kids "themes of friendship, cooperation, solving problems and using your abilities to help others."
- Foil: Doctor Octopus is shown to be skilled in mechanics, which extends to her small helper bot. This parallels Peter Parker's shown skill in the intro with TRACE-E, placing them as direct counterparts using their skills for evil and good respectively.
- Gender Flip: The show changes Dr. Octopus and Electro into girls.
- Given Name Reveal: Mr. Von Carnegie's given name, Fitzhue, is revealed in "Mystery on Goblin Island".
- Helping Granny Cross the Street: In the intro, Ghost-Spider is assisting a trenchcoat elderly man across, only to be interrupted by The Rhino. In the 2nd season intro, Ghost-Spider assists a black elder lady across a street, only instead of Rhino, Black Cat appears snatching the lady's purse.
- Home Base: The WEB-Quarters is a giant Spidey head on appendages. The tie-in book, Go Team Spidey, further elaborates that this is where the Spiders hone their skills and build equipments.
- In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: Much like other Marvel shows in the 2010s, the show's officially referred with Marvel's association in the title.
- Lighter and Softer: Per the press release, the show's intended audience is intended for preschoolers and their families. As a result, the show's opening demonstrates less dramatic takes on superheroing, compared to previous Spider-Man entries aimed at pre-teens, like the previous series Marvel's Spider-Man or the Action-Hogging Opening of Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
- Mythology Gag:
- Miles's hairstyle, affinity for art, and spray-painted spider logo are direct lifts from his Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse incarnation.
- Gwen having the ends of her hair pink-tipped, along with her headband, is lifted from her Marvel Rising incarnation.
- TRACE-E rounds out the Spiderman Intothe Spider Verse references by being a reference to SP//dr: both are spider-themed Cute Machines with the same color scheme (albeit the most obvious one possible) and sidekick to some incarnation of a Spider-Man.
- Hulk being the lone adult superhero in the cast at the time of the show's premiere (this is no longer the case as of Iron Man's introduction in Season 2) could possibly be an homage to how he made the most guest appearances compared to any other superhero in the older-skewing Ultimate Spider-Man.
- Sandman's design is similar to his Spider-Man 3 counterpart.
- Black Panther sports the gray/purple Vibranium suit markings from his Marvel Cinematic Universe counterpart.
- Aunt May has a similar design to her Marvel Cinematic Universe counterpart.
- Peter carries his green eyes from his last animated series, Marvel's Spider-Man.
- The tag line, "Go Webs Go" is similar to a line said by Peter Parker before he swings with his webs for the first time in the first Spider-Man movie.
- Doc Ock being female instead of male is almost certainly inspired by the popularity of the version seen in Into the Spider-Verse.
- Revisiting the Roots: After having depictions heavily based on his Ultimate Comics counterpart, Green Goblin here is shown to have his familiar mainstream look from Earth-616 in the series and tie-in book Super Hero Hiccups.
- Recycled Title: A Downplayed case here. The title between this series and the 1981 cartoon are generally the same, except this series uses the nickname of Spider-Man (Spidey) to make it a little distinct.
- Spin-Off Babies: The Spidey team, their superhero friends, and the villains are primarily depicted as either young children or pre-teenagers, all while still having adventures. Averted with some supporting superheroes like Iron Man and Hulk, as well as supervillan Sandman, all of whom are still adults (although Hulk is more of a Vague Age, and he was turned into a baby temporarily in the Season 2 episode "Li'l Hulk").
- Super-Deformed: Similar to Marvel Superhero Adventures, all of the series' characters share minor chibi proportions.
- Thememobile: According to the intro, The Spider Crew have unique color-coded vehicles for their respective hero:
- Spider-Man drives a red and blue car.
- Miles uses a red and black ski boat.
- Ghost-Spider pilots a purple and white VTOL jet.
- Title, Please!: Like other Disney Junior shows since Summer 2018, the episode titles do not appear on screen, but they were still spoken by the characters.
- Two Guys and a Girl: A recurring theme among the group sets seen in the opening:
- The Spidey Crew comprises of Spider-Man and Spin, with Ghost-Spider being the lone Spider-Woman.
- Prior to the supervillan expansion in Season 2, the initial recurring trio of villains originally had Green Goblin and The Rhino, with Doctor Octopus being the only supervillainess.
- Prior to the supporting superhero expansion in Season 2, the initial extended trio of Amazing Friends originally had Hulk and Black Panther, with Kamala Khan being the only superheroine.
