My Crazy Youth: That Time Spider-Man and His Buddies Ripped Off Agatha Christie!

Ah, this show.  While I was too young to watch the show *new* as a kid (note the Copyright Date), I've watched it growing up in reruns.  Thankfully, cheap Stations love to rerun older shows to save money.  It helped me watch Thundarr the Barbarian and Birdman as a kid and it's allowing kids nowadays to watch Justice League: Unlimited and Dragonball Z as if they were new.

What story is on today's Menu?

In this Episode, Spider-Man rogue The Chameleon is going to enact his super-elaborate, ridiculously-expensive revenge plan on the titular heroes.  Here's the thing though...

THIS IS HIS FIRST APPEARANCE!!!

Anyhow, his plan involves inviting all of the heroes to his Island for a special event.  Given that you stop criminals/tyrants/thugs, would you really take a note inviting you to a remote island at face value?

Well, apparently they do.  The other odd thing here is that not all of these Heroes have appeared before either.  While Captain America and Dr. Strange have, Namor and Shanna the She-Devil have not.  They must have gotten Chameleon in some off-screen action.

That's another thing: when would Dr. Strange, Shanna or Namor ever fought The Chameleon?  One is the Lord of Magic, one rules Atlantis and one lives in The Savage Land.

In addition, Shanna is married to Kazar, so why isn't he here?

Naturally, the group gets split up and taken out with silly and elaborate traps designed just for them.

Well, except for Captain America, who gets taken out by quicksand.  You survived WWII, led the Avengers and battled The Red Skull, but quicksand was your weakness?  Lame!

On top of that, The Chameleon uses his skill to copycat other heroes to make them not trust each other.  It's a stretch to be Captain America (you have a Shield too?), but Spider-Man is pushing it.  Do you have super-agility?  No.

The key player as it turns out is *sigh* Aunt May's dog.  Spider-Man and company brought it along for reasons that are just silly and don't at all jeopardize their secret identities.

The only way that this whole thing could get sillier is if The Chameleon made a giant, robot Spider to...oh, never mind.

Ultimately, the dog helps them find out who's really on their side and they stop the villain.  I love how they almost leave the dog to die from the exploding Castle and literally drag it away at the last minute too.

For those of you who said Mitt Romney's method of dog transportation was bad, check this out!

So that was odd, right?  The idea is an intriguing one- a villain's master plan to capture his foes-, but the execution and thought behind it was weird.  Seriously, how can you have a villain swearing revenge on his first appearance?  How can it be on heroes that are also appearing for the first time and couldn't feasibly be foes of said villain?  Granted- the show is rife with silly plots.  One story has Mysterio mind-controlling people with Disco, while another has the gang team up with a mystic Indian to stop The Red Skull.  No, not Captain America- that'd be too obvious!  Logic and science just take a vacation on this show.  That said, it is pretty fun when they aren't forcing the dog into the story.  Seriously, the dog saves the day.  Wow, just wow.  Not counting DVD releases (if there are any), you've got about another month to catch this show on Streaming via Netflix.  If you want to relive your childhood and just laugh, check it out.

Next up, how do you hide a 100-foot tall robot?  In a desert, of course, says Transformers!  Stay tuned...