Name That Trauma :: Reader Doug on a Scorched Spider-Man

Love your site!,

Here is a movie that haunted my childhood. I'm actually not even sure if it was a horror movie, but one scene scared the pants off of a younger me.

I want to say it was a made-for-T.V. movie in the mid-to-late 1970s as I remember seeing it on more than a few times and always during primetime. It involved two brothers. Both around 8 to11 years old. One was a mute, or maybe retarded? I know something was wrong with him mentally. The other brother, the normal one, loved Spider-Man. Their room was decorated with Spider-Man posters and toys. In particular a Mego Spider-Man. The mentally challenged brother was frightened of Spider-man. So much so he took his brother's Mego Spider-Man and cooked it in the oven.

The smoke alarms went off and the mother ran to the stove. When they pulled out the horribly charred Spider-Man figure from the oven, the normal brother freaked out screaming. And the Mego Spider-Man, it was so disgusting and burnt, that image scared the webbing out of me as a kid.

Does anyone know this movie? It's been driving me nuts for over 30 years.

Thanks Kindertrauma,

— Doug from Ohio

UNK SEZ: I went a' Google-sluethin' and I found your burnt Spider-Man movie! It's called …AND YOUR NAME IS JONAH (1979), a T.V.- movie starring SALLY STRUTHERS and JAMES WOODS. Don't feel bad about not remembering what Jonah's issue was, his parents had a hard time figuring it out as well. Although diagnosed as mentally challenged, we find out through the course of the movie that Jonah is in actuality deaf. I also noticed in the IMDb message board that you are not alone in having a strong memory of the Spider-Man burning incident!

…AND YOUR NAME IS JONAH is not on DVD but you can watch it over at Amazon, Hulu or Netflix streaming. Thanks for coming to us with your Name That Trauma Doug!