We interrupt our regularly scheduled Don Siegel appreciation...

...to share this eerie story of childhood development.

Though I have no recollection of it, I have been told I was quite a fan of The Electric Company as a child. And recently I learned that my lifelong love of Spider-Man began with his guest appearances on TEC. So when The Best of The Electric Company arrived at The Voice I naturally had to take it home and see just what about it fascinated my 5-year-old mind.

The collection contains two episodes that feature Spidey. What I found in the second one blew my mind. In it, Spider-Man takes a day off from fighting crime and goes (in costume, go figure) to a New York Mets game.

(You may have noticed the various Mets web pages listed amongst the Termite Art links; that's because Sweeney and I are both Mets fans of somewhat obsessive proportions.)

Trying to uncover the roots of one obsession, I seem to have stumbled onto the key to all of them. Take a look for yourself:

I'm pretty sure I've had dreams that looked like this.

Imagine discovering the Rosetta Stone to your own life. Seriously: if Orson Welles was in this thing, you could pretty much seal up the nature vs. nuture debate permanently. But, alas, no Orson. Morgan Freeman does play an angry umpire though.

I began rethinking everything about myself while I watched this TEC: do I like hot dogs because Spidey likes hot dogs?

Do I shove hot dogs in strangers' faces because Spidey shoves hot dogs in strangers' faces?

The story makes absolutely no sense: the villain Spidey fights is called The Wall. He is...he is a man who looks a wall, and he moves into position to make a fly ball look like a home run. The Mets are made to look even more pathetic than they normally did in the late 1970s and The Wall, clearly a Braves fan, sabotages the Web-Crawler's favorite team. Uh oh. Spidey doesn't couch no cheaters, and neither does Morgan Freeman.

After some minor kid-friendly scuffling, the problem is solved (thanks, in part, to hot dogs), and the game can continue and we get our requisite happpy ending. And I'm left wondering: What else about me came from this show??? Until I solve that one true believers — keep reading! Take us out Spidey!