The Spectacular Spider-Man was supposed to run for at least five seasons, but when the show's second season moved from The CW's Kids' WB to Disney XD, it was cancelled.
The decision was made shortly after Disney acquired Marvel Entertainment in 2009, and it was later replaced by Ultimate Spider-Man. That had a much longer run than its predecessor and star Drake Bell was able to play the web-slinger in other animated shows as well, including Avengers: Assemble.
Bell's debut as Peter Parker came in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but The Spectacular Spider-Man's Josh Keaton has now revealed he originally recorded those lines.
"Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes was going to be kind of like my sendoff, so I was like 'Alright, that's sweet! At least I get to play Spider-Man in this last thing. That's cool, that's awesome,'" the actor recalled during a recent live stream (via @SpiderMan3news). "And then, the night that it aired, I was going to watch it."
"I watched it and I was like 'Wow, that's not my voice!' He's hitting all the same beats I am hitting as me because the animation was probably already all done so they had him just kind of listen and repeat to what I did and say 'Now, you do it.' Then when I looked at the credits, it said Drake Bell."
"That's around when they announced 'We are coming out with Ultimate Spider-Man!' and Drake Bell is going to play Ultimate Spider-Man," Keaton continued. "I was like 'That sucks! That sucks that they did that to me!' Like they could have at least called me so I wouldn't have gotten so excited."
It's easy enough to understand why Keaton was so disappointed, but he finally got to bid a proper farewell to The Spectacular Spider-Man with a brief cameo in this month's Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
The series is unlikely to ever be revived, but a new animated TV show is on the way to Disney+ called Spider-Man: Freshman Year. As of now, no cast members outside of Charlie Cox have been revealed.