Danny Seagren, the Jim Henson-trained puppeteer who performed on the kids show The Electric Company as a silent Spider-Man in the first live-action depiction of the Marvel superhero, has died. He was 81.
A resident of Little River, South Carolina, Seagren died Nov. 10, his family announced.
On Electric Company sister show Sesame Street, Seagren stepped in for Caroll Spinney to play Big Bird on several episodes and put on the yellow-feathered costume for events, parades and live appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Seagren also created and manned puppet characters for such other kids shows as Captain Kangaroo, Miss Peach of the Kelly School — he created that and received a Daytime Emmy in 1980 for a Thanksgiving Day episode — and Who’s Afraid of Opera, starring Joan Sutherland.
A professionally trained dancer, Seagren was working for Henson with The Muppets in 1974 when he heard that PBS’ The Electric Company, from the Children’s Television Workshop, was looking for someone to play Spider-Man.
He landed an audition for producer Andrew Ferguson and thought, “I’ve got to knock his socks off, somehow,’” he recalled in a 2017 interview with Mark Elitz, author of the 2015 book How to Be a Superhero.
Seagren said he put on the costume and climbed on top of a filing cabinet, and when Ferguson came back, “I jumped over his shoulder — but not quite over his head — and landed on the desk in the middle of the room. I don’t remember if he screamed but he said, ‘Oh, my God.’ I did a few more moves and he said, ‘You got the job.’”
Performing in pantomimed skits called “Spidey Super Stories,” Seagren’s web-slinger “was not above taking the day off from his exhausting and frustrating war against crime [to] catch the baseball game, where he’d sit in the stands, nonchalantly wearing his Spidey costume and, incongruously yet charmingly, a Mets baseball cap,” Elitz noted. “If you caught The Electric Company at just the right age, it served as an affectionate introduction to a beloved character.”
Seagren stuck around for the final three years of The Electric Company, working alongside the likes of Rita Moreno and Morgan Freeman while battling villains including the Funny Bunny, Mr. Measles, the Sitter, the Birthday Bandit, the Spoiler and the Prankster.
“I never felt silly,” he said. “I was focused on trying to be a superhero. I think before they cast me they saw some musclemen, but they couldn’t move. I had to be a little bit campy for the whole thing. I really enjoyed doing it. I always looked forward to the shooting days.”
Daniel Morley Seagren was born in Minneapolis on Nov. 15, 1943. He came to New York City and in 1968 met Henson, who “wanted to train someone who had never done puppets before,” he recalled in a 2015 interview. “He said, ‘Here’s a puppet, take it home, come back on Tuesday and we’ll rehearse.’”
Two weeks later, he was handling a reindeer puppet for a bit on the live The Ed Sullivan Show. In 1969, he was back as Big Bird in a dance number with female “Bird Watchers” to promote the new Sesame Street.
Seagren appeared about three dozen times as Spider-Man during his nearly 400-episode stint on The Electric Company, and his segments were spun off into a Marvel comic book, also called Spidey Super Stories. In character on the show, he never spoke; he got his message across with cartoon “thought bubbles,” which encouraged the young viewers at home to read.
He then spent about three years on Captain Kangaroo.
Survivors include his longtime companion, Kate Vereau, and his brother, Stephen, sister-in-law Jill and nephew Sean.
A celebration of life is being planned. Donations in his memory can be made to the Entertainment Community Fund (formerly The Actors Fund).
Seagren also went on the road as Spider-Man — he said he once did a booking with Adam West and Burt Ward of Batman fame — and told Elitz those gigs were “an excellent source of income.” He was a popular guest as comic book conventions as well.
“I meet people who are in their late 40s who are big fans of the show,” he said. “They really remember it and say that I was their favorite character. That’s very flattering. … Who doesn’t like to talk about themselves? It’s a very nice feeling.”
