How was writing Spider-Man: The Animated Series different from the numerous other shows you write for?

Spider-Man was different from other shows I worked on primarily because of the birthing pains.  There were lots of people who had a say in what the show would be like, and none of them seemed to agree at the start.  A draft of a script might please one of the producers, but then the network would hate it, and vice versa.  There would be seemingly endless re-writes.  Most shows have problems like this at the beginning, but this was the most extreme instance I've seen.  And it was a bit of a surprise, too, because the comic was so explicit; you'd think that everybody would know exactly what the show should be, down to the smallest detail, based on the template that Stan Lee had laid out years earlier in the comics.  But if it hadn't been John Semper's considerable diplomatic skills, the show might still be in pre-production.

The show was very strict with its censorship rules. No punching, fire or children in peril are just a few examples of things you weren’t allowed to do in the show. How did you work around that?

We had to respect the censor's rules.  There was no way around them.  We understood that the show's primary audience would be children, but we hoped that we could attract adults by occasionally focusing on the characters' romantic relationships.

Spider-Man was different from most Saturday morning cartoons at the time; due to its season long arcs rather than the 22-minute stand alone episodes. Do you prefer the season long arcs, or the single episodes?

As a viewer, I prefer season-long storylines because, if done properly, they illuminate character far more than stand-alone episodes.  But as a writer, I prefer an anthological approach, because it allows me more freedom to experiment with tone.  For example, on one anthological series, "Superman," we were able to do comedies, films noir and outright horror. 

The series was known for taking the Lee/Ditko stories of the 60’s and putting a fresh spin on them for a new audience. How important is it to remain faithful to the source material, in your opinion?

I think a show should be only as faithful to its original source as it needs to be.  The Spider-Man movie was very faithful to the comic and was a tremendous success, but there have been many equally successful movies that all but ignored the source material.  It all depends on the material.

The series had an especially large cast for a cartoon, Peter's classmates, The Daily Bugle crew and the super villains. Who in particular did you enjoy writing for?

The character that stood out most to me was Jameson.  His hatred for Peter and Spidey was so pathological; I eventually came to the conclusion that Stan was trying to say something about anti-Semitism -- which wasn't just confined to Germany when Stan was growing up.  Obviously, that's all subtext, but it explains a lot of things.

And finally, which is your favourite of the shows 65 episodes?