7/23/07: RightWingTrashMan: J. Jonah JamesonSo it’s yet another entry about the 40th Anniversary of the Summer of Love—but most of our overkill has involved surprisingly smart hippies. Today, we salute the man who not only spent 1967 complaining about teenagers, but did so while starring in a series aimed at kids. We’re not talking about the perfectly swell J. Jonah Jameson that J.K. Simmons plays so well in the recent
Spider-Man films. Instead, we’re out to honor the J. Jonah Jameson of 1967’s animated
Spider-Man series.
This classic cartoon features a
Daily Bugle where the only employees are usually editor-in-chief Jameson, secretary Betty Brant, and teenage photographer Peter Parker—who’s often the target of Jameson’s rants about today’s lousy teenagers who are never around when you need them. Of course, Parker enjoys the big secret of knowing that he’s on the
Bugle payroll while running around at night as Jameson’s hated enemy Spider-Man.
This take on J. Jonah Jameson plays mostly as comic relief. He’s usually the comic foil being proven wrong once again about his distrust of Spider-Man. However, the right-minded newspaper publisher is allowed a few shining moments.
One of the best is “Fiddler On The Loose,” which begins with Jameson at the Conservatory of Mod Music. His host is swinging old millionaire Cyrus Flintridge III, who’d be played by Cesar Romero if this was a live-action show. “Groovy, man, groovy,” says Flintridge as The Squawkers play some bad jazzy music that’s the cartoon approximation of acid rock.
“Great,” replies the polite-but-tortured Jameson, “just great.” Fortunately, The Squawkers are soon blasted into oblivion by a sonic wave. Flintridge is horrified. “I thought it was part of the show,” says Jameson.
The villain turns out to be a classical musician with a death-dealing violin. He’s planning to extort Flintridge for enough money to start up a conservatory of classical music. Jameson comes up with a plan to catch the bad guy, but that idiot teenager Parker manages to screw up taking a simple picture because he’s too busy being a superhero.
Spider-Man makes up for that mistake, and a grateful Flintridge—who, we find out, is also a big supporter of the local symphony—sends Jameson an LP as a thank-you gift. Jameson is thrilled to have Miss Brant put
Symphony for a Summer Night on the office turntable. “That’s my kind of music,” he tells Miss Brant, before having to abruptly cover his ears.
Miss Brant explains that Mr. Jameson didn’t read the small print on the album: “A Sonic Symphony for the World of Tomorrow.” We feel his pain.
Jameson also gets a proper showcase in “King Pinned”—which is one of the few decent episodes from when Ralph Bakshi took over the series. We’ll write up Bakshi’s
Wizards someday, but everything else that guy’s ever touched has been a disaster.
Spider-Man was no different. The second season took on an ugly psychedelic tone that made it seem like Manhattan was always about to suffer a mudstorm or was heading toward the heart of the sun. Even our 3-year-old kid has figured out that a Bakshi
Spider-Man sucks. He sees one of those ugly title cards from Seasons 2 and 3, and runs away like he’s a character in a Judy Blume book.
(Also—as Bakshi famously attempted with 1988’s
Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures—he has to include plenty of drug references.)
Anyway, “King Pinned” is the second part of when Bakshi decided to start the series over with the origin of Spider-Man. Peter Parker tries to get a job at the
Daily Bugle as a copy boy (yes, a copy boy) because his widowed Aunt May needs help to pay for her expensive medication. J. Jonah Jameson immediately hires the teenager once he learns that Parker is “the kid whose uncle was murdered.”
Then Jameson says to himself, “That’s my good deed for the day. What it takes to run a newspaper…” He’s being modest. Even in 1967, the gang at the
New York Times would’ve rather hired the guy who murdered the kid’s uncle.
Jameson then gets busy exposing a criminal syndicate plot where pharmacists are forced to sell useless fake drugs to ailing old people—including Aunt May. The evil Kingpin comes over with some goons to teach Jameson “a lesson in journalistic ethics.” Presumably, they’ll force Jameson to do a multiple-part series about evil pharmaceutical companies. Spider-Man saves the day, but Jameson puts on a fine display of integrity.
And we might as well add that J. Jonah Jameson’s
official biography notes that he first used the
Daily Bugle to support civil rights for minority groups. Jameson was running the paper in 1962, so he probably went up against Al Gore, Sr. and plenty of other Democrats. Good for JJJ.
Make him your own: J. Jonah Jameson is looking colorful in the digitally remastered DVDs of
Spider-Man—The ’67 Collection—but the episodes go all the way to 1970, so you’re only going to enjoy about half the episodes in the 6-disc set.
