Ralph Bakshi's GREEN VILLIANS in Spider-Man 1967

An "in-depth" look at why Bakshi/Krantz made so many green villains in the Spider-Man 67' cartoon

[@InhumanFan98]

The answer is that the green paint for the cells was the cheapest they could afford, the show had basically no budget at a point so to keep costs down they used green paint for the villains

[@EricLeValley]

Interesting. Do you have any sources for that?

[@InhumanFan98]

@@EricLeValley Tv tropes. skin is a very hard colour to make with mixing alot of paints while green is so simple with only two paints needed. And with how the budget nosedived in season 2 when the green skinned villains started to be used them. It makes sense

[@EricLeValley]

So why not make them red, yellow, or blue? A primary color would only need one paint.

[@InhumanFan98]

@@EricLeValley im not sure tbh but i remember reading the green is cheap fact somewhere

[@Offramp-z7p]

Dang. I was about to make a joke that green paint was on sale, and it basically turned out to be the real answer.

[@mechajay3358]

Bakashi must've saw Green Goblin when he was brought on and assumed all of Spider-Man villains were green and went with it.

[@glenesis]

I watched these every day when I was tiny in the 70's and never knew they were done by Bakshi. Figures! I love his stuff too.

[@mikemayberry7121]

You laid out some very convincing theories about the topic. It was probably both the influence of the comic book and the coordinated color scheme that led to a lot of villains being green. This was awesome! Thanks for the shout-out! I really enjoyed the video!

[@SunSmog]

y'know what they say, it aint easy being green!

[@jaggerguth4391]

Kermit: My lawyers are gonna croak ya!

[@maxordman4100]

Ha haha! Good video! This was a real treat! I laughed a lot at this! I have lots of good memories about this cartoon.

[@AaronKraten]

Such a great video. I always wondered why the art style changed so much from season 1 to 2 and 3.

[@jaggerguth4391]

They say green is the most prominent color in Spidey's rogues gallery but that doesn't mean every single villain is green.

[@carmenfajardo4776]

Great video as always!

[@Ektalon]

Now tell me why Bakshi changed Mysterio into a green Charles Nelson Reilly?

[@DocRunaway]

I think it's because of the Frankenstein monster (whose classic green skin color nobody can tell the origin of, since the first movies were black and white). You can tell that in many episodes there are references to horror and silent movies. Dr. Pretoris (The Birth of Microman) is based on the Frankenstein monster (face and hair) and his name comes from the "Bride of Frankenstein" character, Dr. Pretorius (another evil scientist). On "Blotto," the two villains Clive and Colin take their names from actor Colin Clive, Dr. Frankenstein from "Frankenstein" and "The Bride of..." and look like/are a mad scientist and his short deformed aide (Ygor). Also, the Master Technician is heavily based on "Metropolis" mad scientist Rotwang, with the messy white hair and robotic gloved hand.

[@joadarium9605]

Suprised i'm today years old learning Ralph Bakshi worked on Spider-Man '67 or ANYTHING Spidey or superhero related ever

[@jaggerguth4391]

He did the Mighty Heroes which is a comedic parody of superheroes.

[@ShockwaveFPSStudios]

One thing to point out is that not every villain in the 1967 Krantz Spider-Man series were green. In fact some of the villains weren’t even made for the Original Meme Worthy Spider-Man cartoon. Some of them were from a different show that was airing around the time as the Spider-Man series (mainly because of the same production studios) like Infinata (who was a villain from an obscure Canadian series called, Rocket Robin Hood).

[@robotek148]

This series was so 'vibey', evokes something in me.

[@JomasterTheSecond]

Imagine if you were just born green, you'd have no other choice than to terrorise New York and fight Spider-Man for a living

[@EricLeValley]

I picture a green son having a fight with his green father about wanting something different out of life. Something more than just fighting Spider-Man all the time.

[@vitoldwisniewski]

I always thought there was some silly mandate to try and not include too many ethnic characters as villains in cartoons.

[@touncyTB]

this is spiderman i grew up on.. later when a then indy channel 28 started in tb bay area, this was one of their few shows.. didn't have much content at first ..no streaming then, was like a dream come true

[@CSGraves]

Those green ghost guys... ALSO swiped from Rocket Robin Hood.

[@Hammerchucker]

Most of bad guys and wizards are green too

[@thezombiemachinist01]

I grew up having really weird memories about this show and Rocket Robin Hood. It wasn't until a few years back that I learned about the sharing and reuse of cells.

[@rexradar9297]

Don't forget Hercules, which also shared background visuals and enemies.

[@Grim2]

Drugs. Answer is drugs.

[@rikardandersson5582]

I guess Bakshi was a Green Goblin fan

[@srstriker6420]

Expect that he never used the Green Goblin after season as he seems like a minor character and he goes to jail instead Peter always covering up his crimes like all ways

[@Passageofsky]

Vulture, Scorpian, Sandman, Mysterio, Lizard, Green Goblin, Electro, Doc Oc, etc. I think it says a lot about Jack Kirby that he used that as the primary colour in all of those designs and I knew noticed because his designs/Colour Schemes are so amazing.

[@DocBruceBanner]

Jack Kirby had nothing to do with any of those characters.

[@jameshoward7428]

All of those character designs were created by Steve Ditko, not Jack Kirby.

[@KlonoaPrime]

Welcome back!

[@EricLeValley]

Thanks Klonoa!

[@Gfrog1000]

I remember being so confused by the “Mysterio” episode.

[@alexadams4358]

When Ralph Bakshi was in charge, he wanted to add in more Green Skin Monsters for Spider-Man to Fgiht. Just Because.

[@doro626]

Stan lee mentioned this. Look at a color wheel That explains teh green. Purple is opposite green. Many of spidermans classic villains are green and purple.

[@bigguy130]

I kind of wonder, what did Stan Lee think of Bakshi and what did Bakshi think of Stan Lee?

[@blacksnk]

Most Marvel villians were dressed green and purple. Kang, Dr Doom, Purple Man, Zemo, etc

[@doro626]

@ Yeah. Iron Man was red, Ant man, Wonder man. FF wore Blue, so it all fits.

[@DaimosZ]

You're back!

[@EricLeValley]

I am! Thanks for watching!!

[@DaimosZ]

@@EricLeValley my pleasure

[@TJOEL20]

Waited 9 months just for this guy to sorta kinda explain some very basic color theory in an attempt to answer a question that never even got answered… I love this channel ❤️😂

[@TheDeathboy900]

What people will (or won't ) say just to post a KZbin video

[@TJOEL20]

@ Eh, not every KZbin video has to have ground breaking information. Sometimes it’s fun to just talk about the media you like.

[@srstriker6420]

@@TJOEL20I wish he does a video on this Green Goblin and the villains like Dr Noah Boddy aka the invisible man

[@PaulFagundes]

Love this!

[@bartpowell9003]

WOW Big Fun !!! Mind-blowing Nostalgia !!!

[@jetboyblue4478]

This was one of my favourite shows growing up

[@ZZtheDark]

Green, eh? Spiders are scary. Green is associated with a lot of wicked things that you can't see but also fear. They're playing around with what makes people tick. It works. Gives the whole horror vibe to it.

[@MasterZoda]

As to why the characters in the comics were green, I remember reading a long time ago that Marvel wanted to use more green inks in their coloring because many of their urban settings were lacking in the color, so it might have been a cost-saving measure when they were buying the inks for their printing jobs. I don't know if that is true or not, but it would explain why the Hulk's color was switched to green soon after his debut, where he was colored gray instead.

[@jasonminote7499]

The Reason might be a lot of people of had black and white TV at the time not so many color ones so it didn't matter what color they were.

[@PrincessOzaline]

One thing I noticed though this was in the 90s that a lot of Yellow Perril villains were recolored Green. Ming from Flash Gordon became a Lizard guy, The Mandarin was green... Dr. No was Green in James Bond Jr. Seemed to be a way to take the racist bite out of them... kinda... not really. Some of these are yellow perril villains too... but it's probably a coincidence.

[@ericjohnson9623]

Same with The Mandarin in the 90s Iron Man show!

[@djscratchnsniff]

thanks for the video

[@richardthompson6366]

Animation creators staying true to the source material, what a concept.

[@some_guy117]

I think we need more of Pardo these days

[@matthewdunham1689]

There was a giant green plant 🌱 monster wasn’t there? 😂❤

[@AryanKing94]

I'm pretty sure the answer has something to do with green rendering better on cheap film without disappearing into the background. A lot of times animators used to have problems rendering their paintings because the color details would blend and you'd practically have parts disappear. I remember an example of Merry Melody animators at WB in the 60s I believe explaining how they had to keep redoing Elmer Fudd parts because his head would randomly disappear on film when they were splicing his parts together.

[@mekman4]

Great Stuff!

[@craigthebrute8932]

He would love the Jackal

[@darkknightfan7520]

Spidey has the most green rogues gallery out of every hero from marvel & dc it seems.

[@mcg6866]

Marijuana is green further suggesting Ralph Bakshi's Spider-Man is one big drug trip. Walloping Websnappers!!

[@EvilxSausage]

I don't know, I think of purple as a better complement for green. I always assumed that that was why the Hulk and the Lizard wore purple pants.

[@twiggypie2314]

So I wonder, most people didn’t have color TVs in the 1960s and even into the 1970s. If you search youtube for “transition from black and white to color tv”, you can see many stations around the US and the world didn’t broadcast in color until well into the 1970s. Different colors still show up as visibly different shades in black and white film and tv, so I wonder did the green paint give them an otherworldly appearance in black and white broadcasts?

[@MrBryant252005]

Green with envy

[@Wilbur-p1s]

When I think of green, I think of Kermit 🐸

[@georgehenry1258]

I LOVED this show growing up in the 70s and watched it every day. I always wondered why all the villains were green. They always seemed to show the 2nd season episodes constantly. As a kid I disliked the psychedelic backgrounds, stories and constant swinging scenes. I bought the dvd when it came out and was very surprised to find out I never saw ANY of the 3rd season episodes. Thank God. They’re positively awful, with no redeeming features. Also, Sky Master is clearly Robert Mitchum

[@archangel5627]

Green is not the complementary color to red it’s literally the opposite of red on the color wheel. Red and green clash and that’s the exact reason why Steve Ditko made the large majority of Spidey villains green.

[@billcox8870]

Have you done one where some of the villains in Spider-Man were also used for the rocket Robin Hood series? The villain from the fifth dimension of imagination was used in both, and a lot of the footage was used in both as well.

[@EricLeValley]

I have! I've done a video on both "Phantom from the Depths of Time" and "Revolt in the Fifth Dimension" where I show side by side footage of Spidey 67' and RRH

[@billcox8870]

@@EricLeValley then you know what I am talking about. I used to watch both shows of the kid

[@billcox8870]

@EricLeValley I found the video you were referring to and I watched it. Until I watch your videos I had no idea that she was involved. He's one of my favorite animators. Thank you for that delightful nugget of knowledge😊👍🏻

[@cabbyteld399]

So the answer is color theory basically 😅

[@MrBryant252005]

Nice post

[@FirstnameLastname-my7bz]

please invest into lots and lots of onions

[@ElGatoBlanco1970]

They probably had a surplus of that color. If everything else was basically recycled then it is safe to assume they would use what they had on hand.

[@KurtDeyoung-u9v]

I have not out done original cartoons series yet in my opinion👋

[@johnwhitaker6988]

What happened to the Green Goblin?

[@Dazzler69]

I always thought they made the humans green to make them evil in the eyes of the kids at the time. And not do human pink for evil guys so kids would not be afraid of their teachers or other adults when they are out and about. Green for evil, human pink for good.

[@TheLepke2011]

As someone who's green, this is racist.

[@blakespower]

used to watch this show at home before school in my house while waiting for the bus, now its against the law to have cartoons on in the morning or on Saturday STUPID POLITICIANS, or they have to be "educational"

[@RathouseFilmworks]

Why are the spider-men green

[@ivane5110]

Case closed! This and another channels video about the show (though they didn't focus on the skin colors, but it came up) make me now see this Earth as having green as a rarer but natiral skin color there. Which makes me want to now know the plight of greens were in that reality. It also make me want at least one live action green-skinned cameo from this Earth in the next Spiderverse movie. (Oh hey, can you now do a videi on why Star Trek the cartoon series had wayyy too much pink? (Between that and reruns of this show a generation of kids' color sensibilities were warped for life).

[@markanderson-hc1tz]

The Bakshi seasons were awful compared to season one.

[@matttorrence2900]

I had #66 and #67

[@Delmo5]

Honestly, if you don't know the actual reason, don't make a video alleging that you do.

[@postironichno_innit]

2:29 did you just say.... NUTZI???????

[@aubreysmith7355]

Purple and green is the colour of the villain in comics. Colour palates would be simple, based on printing abilities and methods for printing colour, so bold colour choices would be chosen. Green is sickly, envy, greed. Not just comics but other fiction at that time.Animation, Disney...Wicked Witch of West. So green as the villain went with what they did at the time. Purple is royalty, superiority. Purple was a dye that was hard to get so only the rich and powerful could get it. So the list of popular villain character that are green and even specifically purple and green is long. Green Goblin. In the Sony movie they play with colour and at one point Harry is wearing both the hero and villain colours. Incredible Hulk started gray but is known for purple and green. This is because everyone sees that character as a villain. The list is long but even DC does it, Joker(clown prince of crime), Riddler Penguin is purple AND in Penguin HBO show they play up purple being his royalty colour because penguin is a small man wanting to be big, Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Catwoman in her original design. Even just Spidey's most famous rogues are all green, purple or orange. You also have complimentary colours to Spidey's hero's colour scheme. So the opposite to Red is green. So doc ock, vulture, mysterio, sandman, green goblin, Lizard etc. You also have Dr Doom, Kang, Mole man etc.

[@Grim2]

Listen, you can write an entire novel in a comment and you'll still be clueless.