"Shut your mouth, pussycat, e fammi un macchiato! Pronto!"
Italian Spiderman is a
parody of foreign knockoffs of American superheroes; its name is inspired by existing nicknames for such things as
Turkish Star Wars and
Indian Superman. (Though it should be mentioned that in this case, it's accurate. His name is Italian Spiderman.) It began as a
trailer for a nonexistent film, made by Australian Dario Russo for his senior finals.
Uploaded to Youtube in November 2007
, it became a cult hit and was expanded into ten short films.
The plot involves an asteroid falling to earth. It is experimented on by Professor Bernardi, who develops the
power of cloning from it. He gives it to Italian Spiderman, an overweight
chain smoking brute, for safekeeping from the evil Captain Maximum. What follows are a series of chases, brawls, gunfights, and a
surfing contest, none of which have much to do with anything.
Italian Spiderman is shot in 16mm, similar to
B movies of the late '60s. The dialogue was
dubbed sloppily into Italian and given English subtitles. Large amounts of
stock footage are used, in completely inappropriate places. As part of its promotion,
a fictional history of its production company, Alrugo, was created, and placed on its website.
The series can be viewed
here.
Plans to continue the series on Australian Network
SBS proved unfruitful, and were dropped in favour of a
new series...
Danger 5.
Not to be confused with the
Japanese Spiderman, which was a real (officially licensed by Marvel) show, believe it or not.
This work contains the following tropes:
- Adaptation Decay: Compare Italian Spiderman to Peter Parker. They're like night and day. Which was the idea all along naturally.
- Almost Dead Guy
- Animal Assassin Parodied. Twice. In episode 3, Italian Spiderman faces a crocodile which goes from stock footage to a man in a rubber suit holding a gun. In a later episode, a snake attacks him from the ceiling. He seizes it them and screams "Who sent you?!?!"
- Animorphism: Captain Maximum can turn himself and others into snakes.
- Aside Glance: Professor Bernardi in a suggestive moment between him and his assistant Judy.
- Big "NO!"
- Bloody Hilarious: Whenever Italian Spiderman kills someone with his hands, fountains of transparently fake blood end up everywhere.
- Blown Across the Room
- Bottomless Magazines
- One scene plays it straight and subverts it at the same time: Captain Maximum shoots professor Bernardi with a revolver and fires fifteen rounds without reloading, then the gun clicks empty.
- Camp
- Cloning Blues
- Dead Unicorn Trope: Foreign knockoffs didn't actually refer to their country of origin.
- Death Glare: Italian Spiderman's glare can force chickens to hatch cigarettes.
- Early-Bird Cameo: During the motorcycle chase in Episode 5, two guys who fit the Fat and Skinny trope watch Italian Spiderman and Captain Maximum from afar, then run off. They never appear again, so we never get to learn their names, or even whose side they're on.
- Everything's Better with Penguins: "Penguini!"
- Eyepatch of Power
- Fanservice
- Fun with Subtitles: In Episode 7, after Professor Bernardi extracts the formula, Italain Spiderman says to him, "Don't worry about it..." The guard reacts by hitting him and saying, "Silence!" In the captions, rather than replace Italian Spiderman's line with the guard's, they just put the latter below the former. Later, after Bernardi injects some of the formula to the guard, Captain Maxmium says, "Hurry up old man!" Bernardi responds, "But?" Again, same deal as Italian Spiderman and the guard.
- Gratuitous English
- Grievous Bottley Harm: Complete with Eye Scream.
- Guns Akimbo
- A Handful for an Eye: Sand is thrown in the face of a mook who's wearing sunglasses.
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath
- High Pressure Blood
- Hollywood Science
- Hot Scientist: Judy, Professor Bernardi's assistant.
- Hypocritical Humour: Italian Spiderman beat up a pervert who made disparaging comments on a woman, telling him to respect women. Then he beat up the same woman and told her to make him a macchiato.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy
- Improbable Weapon User: The list includes briefcases, penguins and his mustache.
- In Name Only: Like many of the genuine foreign rip-offs it parodies, Italian Spiderman bears absolutely zero similarities to the Marvel comic book hero. The closest thing to any of American Spider-Man's powers is Italian Spiderman's Aquaman-esue ability to communicate with tarantulas.
- Italianglish: Also Hong Kong Dub.
- Latex Perfection
- Lead In: Episode 1 in its entirety.
- Licensed Sexist: "Respecte la donna!"
- Made of Plasticine: Italian Spiderman decapitates a mook with a single chop from his hand. He cuts another mook's arm off in the same way.
- Male Gaze: And hideous male grunting.
- Oddly enough, also done to the male Captain Maximum.
- Though Italian Spiderman was appropriately disgusted when he realized it was him.
- Mask Power
- Missing Trailer Scene: Most of the footage from the trailer doesn't appear in the movie. Then again, it is Part 1 we're talking about.
- Mook Chivalry
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Italian Spiderman has Super Strength, Flight, teleportation, mind control, penguin summoning, colossal growth, and can throw his moustache like a boomerang.
- The colossal growth was caused by drinking the formula that clones mooks when they take it intravenously (Why taking it in a different manner causes a different effect is never explained.
- He also can also shrink motor vehicles, carry them around, and restore them to their original size at will.
- His boomerang mustache can explode. Then return to him undamaged.
- That Other Wiki lists "Uncanny Surfing Skills" and "ferociously overpowering sex appeal" as some of his superpowers.
- Nightmare Sequence: Knockout gas induces one of these.
- Off with His Head!
- Overused Running Gag: The shakey head guy.
- Please Wake Up: Italian Spiderman tries to wake Professor Bernardi by punching him.
- Porn Stache
- Product Placement: Il Gallo cigarettes. These don't exist in real life.
- Recurring Extra: A guy who, upon seeing something out of the ordinary, just stands there with a shocked expression on his face and shaking his head wildly. He sometimes points at what he's seeing while he does this.
- Relax-o-Vision: The start of a love scene cuts away to Toku.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent
- Retraux: For old Italian movies.
- Say My Name: "Captain Maximum!"
- Sixties Hair: Including the beehive hairdo.
- Stock Sound Effects: Snarling is added in many places.
- Teleport Spam
- What the Hell, Hero?: He constantly insults and hits any girl he encounters, often after (or before) hitting another character for not respecting women.
- World of Ham
- Would Hit a Girl: Italian Spiderman.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness
- Your Head Asplode: The mustache boomerang causes this.
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