Illustrator Garth Williams wasn’t sure how to draw Charlotte at first. He wanted her to look friendly and charming, so he tried drawing her with a woman’s face, and even went so far as to make her look like the Mona Lisa. Finally, they settled on drawing an anatomically correct spider with two little pinpoints for eyes. [1]
Charlotte’s Web is a 1973 animated musical drama film based on the 1952 children’s book of the same name by E.B. White, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and distributed by Paramount Pictures.
The film, like the book, is about a pig named Wilbur who befriends an intelligent gray spider named Charlotte who saves him from being slaughtered. The film was directed by Charles A. Nichols and Iwao Takamoto from a story by Earl Hamner Jr, and features the voices of Debbie Reynolds, Paul Lynde, and Henry Gibson, alongside narration by Rex Allen. Charlotte’s Web also features a song score of music and lyrics written by the Sherman Brothers. The movie premiered at New York’s Radio City Music Hall in February 1973. It was the first of only four Hanna-Barbera films not to be based upon one of their famous television cartoons.
The film was released on VHS in 1979, followed by re-releases in 1988, 1993, and 1996. It appeared on DVD in 2001 and 2006.
Despite assisting in helping keep parts of the story, White was still very displeased with the adaptation. According to Gene Deitch, White wrote in a 1977 letter, “We have never ceased to regret that your version of ‘Charlotte’s Web’ never got made. The Hanna-Barbera version has never pleased either of us … a travesty …” White himself wrote of the film, “The story is interrupted every few minutes so that somebody can sing a jolly song. I don’t care much for jolly songs.”
A direct-to-video sequel titled Charlotte’s Web 2: Wilbur’s Great Adventure was released in 2003, co-produced by Nickelodeon and co-distributed by Universal Studios Home Entertainment. The sequel centres on Wilbur’s relationship with a lonely lamb named Cardigan and also shows Charlotte’s children as adolescents. Reviews for the sequel were generally unfavorable, with critics panning its animation and plot.