by Ryan Rigley

Who would have thought that one day the star of Nickelodeon's "Drake & Josh" would be Spider-Man? Many fans were initially skeptical about the decision to cast Drake Bell as Peter Parker on the upcoming "Ultimate Spider-Man" cartoon, but in a recent interview with "Man Of Action Studios," the primary driving force behind the new show, the team assured us that Bell was, in fact, the perfect choice.

"It's funny, we had a bunch of people audition, and we had a bunch of people weighing in, cause 'Man Of Action' serves as producers on the show as well," Steven Seagle of "Man of Action" said. "There was very little unanimous decision about any of the parts, but everyone thought he should be Spider-Man."

Casting Bell in the role of Peter Parker was part of a larger effort to reconnect with why fans love the wall-crawler. "I would say that one of the coolest things that we've done on the show is revisit kind of the attitude of the original Spider-Man (in the comic books) and really think about the way that Peter Parker was irreverent, the way that that comic book was irreverent to the comic books of the time," Seagle explained. "And this show is kind of taking that tone where we're violating the 4th wall, we're doing a lot of comedic bits you wouldn't expect, and it's very much in tone with early Peter Parker and that kind of maverick attitude and it's just stuff you haven't seen done in animation."

Certainly, playing all of these different aspects of Spidey's personality must take its toll on Bell. When questioned about Bell's performance as the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, "Man Of Action" was quick to reply, "He totally gets the absurdity of it. I mean, we put him through a lot of vocal hoop jumping."

Vocal hoop jumping? Please elaborate.

"The action of the show will have Spider-Man yelling something at his teammates; they've announced the team (Iron Fist, Power Man, White Tiger, Nova). So he'll be calling out some kind of order to the team and then he'll go to his internal brain where he'll have warring factions in his head talking to him," Seagle added. "So it's Drake in action, then Drake talking as voices in his head to himself, then Drake turning to camera and talking to us as Peter Parker, then jumping back into the action. You know, it's a lot to pull off."

As huge Spider-Man fans, it’s reassuring to see that "Man Of Action" clearly has the utmost faith in their leading man. And with the amount of praise that Bell has been getting for his take on Spider-Man, we can't wait to see what the final product will look like.

"He's really really talented. His Peter Parker is endearing and funny and he gets the comedy of the show in a great way," Seagle said. "We do have a lot of big name actors involved with the show and doing guest spots and guest voices and things like that, but the heart and soul of it is definitely Drake, who nails it."

What do you think of Drake Bell playing Peter Parker? Let us know in the comments below and on Twitter!