Shades of Green: The Green Goblin in Film and TV (Part 2)

By Jason Lethert

Spider-Man's cartoon adventures in the early 1980s came to an abrupt end. The network version ran for two 12 episode seasons, but was only given a half order for it's third season. Despite good ratings, changes in management at NBC and a revamp of the NBC Saturday morning line-up resulted in cancellation of the series. The network and syndicated shows only put out a combined 50 episodes - short of the magic number for syndication. And with Spidey off the air, the Goblin was out of Hollywood as well - for almost a decade.

However, a few times when Hollywood came calling for Spider-Man, the Goblin was left behind. In two lesser-known productions, Spider-Man was presented sans Goblin - and sometimes with no super villains at all! In the early 70s, Spider-Man was made into a series of short live-action featurette. They were ultra low-budget kiddy-skits done for the PBS series The Electric Company - but they were done with an enthusiastic charm (trivia note - Morgan Freeman, an Electric Company regular guest-starred as Dracula in one episode). Alas, none of Spidey's rogues gallery appeared in these shorts.

And of course, there was the infamous prime-time network live-action Spider-Man in the late 70s starring twenty-something Nicholas Hammond as Peter Parker. Again, the show had a spark when Spidey was onscreen, but was overshadowed by the F/X limitations of 70s network television. However, the show's most grievous error was in rejecting the character's comic book heritage. Shockingly, not one of the 15 hours of television produced included a villain from the comic books. The only characters from Peter's world that made the cut were Jameson and Aunt May.

1992 - Alive At Last! 

But, if Hollywood was ignoring the Goblin, fandom was not. And in the early 90s, one particularly driven fanboy dared the unthinkable - a homemade movie adapting the "Death of Gwen Stacy" story from the comics. Finally, the Goblin was going live. Before 1992, Dan Poole was just an average guy in Baltimore with a camcorder and a few hundred bucks burning a hole in his pocket. But with determination and ingenuity, he used his passion for Spider-Man to fashion a Spidey film that any hardcore fan would need for his collection.

Most of Poole's film is betrayed by the poor production values, but when it shines, it's pure Spidey fun. The Green Goblin's Last Stand had wild stunts and pyrotechnics, and at times excellent camera work and editing. Being center to the story, great care was taken in the creation of the goblin. The look was classic green skin and purple tunic, complete with a satchel full of weaponry.

In Poole's film, the Goblin is afforded almost all of his traditional weapons and equipment. Pyrotechnics were used for the Goblin's gauntlet energy discharge, as well as for the classic pumpkin bombs. One scene depicts a battered Spider-Man under the Goblin's barrage of weapons, his mask burned off and his face seared from flame. Yes, the Goblin was represented quite well in the action department. Poole even found a way for limited use of the Goblin's jet-glider.

The storyline closely matched that of the comics, with local Baltimore actor Jimi Kinstle as Norman Osborn/Green Goblin. While Kinstle's performance could be diplomatically described as uneven, his Goblin persona was actually pretty good, if a bit screechy. The Goblin mask (created by Poole's buddy Eric Supensky) was a somewhat clunky prostetic, with the eyes and mouth cut out to let Kinstle emote, and very effective in certain shots As in the comics, Norman's son Harry also figured into the film.

The climactic battle is action packed - full of explosions and crazy stunts in high-flying Spidey style. And the final scene of the Goblin's death is gruesome and well done. Poole's film eventually was found out by the internet press (for previous Comics2Film coverage please see The Dan Poole Interview and The Green Goblin's Last Shot), and Poole became somewhat of a celebrity among the fans. Poole circulated some publicity copies of the film, and soon it was turning up pirated and sold on eBay and at comic book conventions, and a documentary on the film followed. Many consider it the best live action Spider-Man (and Goblin) adaptation to date - until fans are satiated next may, anyway. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

1994 - Definitive Goblin

In the early 90s, the still-fledgling Fox network was looking for any advantage against the big three networks. Part of that strategy was to take bold action in children's programming, which resulted in critical and ratings smash-hits with Batman: The Animated Series, and The X-Men. By the mid-90s, Batman was getting ready to jump to the WB network (being produced by Warners), and the Fox network was looking for a new hit. Meanwhile, when it came to movie adaptations, Marvel Comics had been D.C.'s whipping boy, but Marvel was about to take a huge lead in TV animation when they solved Fox's problem with Spider-Man: The Animated Series.

Spider-Man: TAS, another critical and ratings smash for Fox, is also hands-down the best adaptation of the wall crawler that Hollywood produced before the millennium. Unlike The X-Men cartoon, this one got the big-budget treatment from day one. The animation was top-notch, there was plenty of action, and the characterizations spot-on, with plenty of big name guest stars providing voices. The show was also a faithful story adaptation, drawing from classic stories and implementing them into season-long arcs.

Unfortunately for the Green Goblin, the earlier trend of under-representation would continue. By now, not only was the Goblin long dead, the Hobgoblin had risen to take his place and was a chief Spidey villain for years. Thusly when the first season kicked off, it was the Hobgoblin (voiced by Mark Hamill) that got a two-part episode, not GG. In fact, the series reversed the comic continuity - in the cartoon, the Hobgoblin comes first, and later it is the Green Goblin who adopts his predecessor's weapons and equipment.

But when the Green Goblin finally turned up about two-thirds into S-M:TAS's 65 episode run, it was a flawless rendition. The series had early on established a solid comic book version of Norman Osborn, both visually and through veteran cartoon voice actor Neil Ross. And when Ross was finally able to cut loose with the Goblin persona (and some good writing), we finally see GG in all his splendor. As mentioned above, the animation was excellent, and GG had all his weapons and equipment (though, the 10 ft. wide "super-jet-glider" that made a brief appearance was stretching credibility a bit).

Spider-Man: TAS had finally given fans the perfect Green Goblin. GG even upstaged the Hobgoblin as a better translation, and more effective villain. The potential of the character from panels on pages had at last been fulfilled in animation. But the animated story doesn't end there. After S-M:TAS ran it's course, Fox and Marvel decided to take a bold move - and change everything you knew about Spider-Man!

Check out part 3 where you'll find:

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