Geeking Out About Cinema #3: My Nerdy Spider-Man 3 Confession

As passionate film fans, there are times in our lives where we may say or even think certain things in the spur of the moment that, at the moment, are absolutely absurd. Many of us like to brush off the fact that such nonsensical thinking could have ever entered our brain in order to preserve some false image of maturity and perfect geeky insight. And then there are others like myself who approach things a bit more honestly accepting the humility of it all. Well, this particular case is an example of me perhaps being a little too honest and open with my occasional slip ups where a particular situation is concerned. 

I'll just get it out of the way right now and say it. I...I thought that Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 movie visually ripped off a Nickelodeon cartoon during one of its coolest scenes. The worst part of it is that it actually bothered me whenever I'd rewatch that scene considering that it was one of few shining moments of that whole movie. Yeah, that actually happened. Back in 2003, there was a cartoon called My Life as a Teenage Robot that was released and aired on Nickelodeon. Personally, I wasn’t much of a fan of the show, but I did glimpse a couple of episodes here and there when there was nothing else on the TV Guide. Oh man..."surfacing the TV guide"...I think I just made myself feel old for a second there. 

Anyway, there was one particular episode that jumped out at me entitled “The Return of Raggedy Android” which originally aired in 2003 (and was produced in 2002). Keep in mind that, considering that the show just didn't look appealing when it first came out, I never saw it during its original run and ended up randomly catching it as a rerun during the late 2000’s. In it, there's a scene where the robot protagonist gets possessed by her public disguise exo-skin suit resulting in her becoming this attention seeking and ”normal looking” woman which was against her actual personality. It's...it's a weird show. She then essentially becomes manipulated by this new power eventually resulting in her having a self reflecting moment before breaking free of it.

The visual direction behind the bedroom possession scene with the exo-suit’s presentation and the overall storyline strongly came off as a fun homage to Sam Raimi’s Spiderman 3 where Peter Parker also undergoes a glaringly similar situation. There's even a bit at the end of the episode where the protagonist is freed of the eco-skin, but the suit on its own decides to latch onto another host who is shown to be in an emotional state much like Eddie Brock was in the movie. However, that’s completely impossible. You see Spiderman 3 came out in 2007 and this episode was made in 2002. Considering how close the parallels were with their visual concepts and narrative ideas altogether, it literally bothered me like a legitimate thought provoking conflict back then. 

I kept questioning whether or not one of my favorite comic book movie scenes of all time was actually a rip off of a cartoon that I thought was just mediocre at best. Looking back at it, I find it hilarious that thoughts like that were "troubling" to me making me realize just how drastically more blissful things were in my youth versus the trials of adulthood. And there you have it. That’s my little random and nerdy confession for tonight. Just some kid back in the day contemplating about whether the value of an awesome movie scene dropped because a cartoon that I found to be below average did the exact same thing years prior. 

Of course my opinions have changed over the years as I've matured as a fan (thank goodness), but there still remains a lingering curiosity. Was there a connection between the two properties? If anyone out there has any insight on this, feel free to comment below. Perhaps My Life as A Teenage Robot paid homage to the 90’s Spiderman cartoon Venom episode or images from the comics? That's certainly a possibility and a more likely reasoning.