I was a devoted Channel 5 WNEW watcher as a little kid. I remember when I was in the hospital, age 3, with a ruptured appendix that led to a host of complications, having them wheel over a TV to my bed and enduring the pain of sitting up, just for a chance to catch the cartoon line up the “fun’s on Channel 5!” bumper promised.

FUNFACT: The old Spider-Man cartoon used to play after The Flintstones (it may or may not have been preceded as well by FANTASTIC VOYAGE). So you know the theme song? The “Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can…” one.

Well, there was one line that says “Can he swing/from a thread/ take a look/overhead/ HEY THERE! There goes the Spider-Man!”

I misheard the lyrics. I was convinced that it said “Can he swing/with a FRED/ take a look…”

The idea being, I supposed, that as a testament to his radioactive-spider-enhanced strength (and his web-fluid’s tensile strength), that he could swing while carrying an object so weighty as a “Fred,” since Barney used to tease Fred Flintstone so much about his weight. Like “a Fred” is a unit of cartoon measurement denoting a large amount of weight.

I was actually annoyed at the cross-continuity reference, all in pursuit of a rhyme, since the idea of Spider-Man swinging while carrying Fred Flintstone made a kind of mockery of the “seriousness” of the Spider-Man cartoon.

I was kind of a dopey kid.