He’s cute. He’s chubby. He’s voiced by John Mulaney. He’d probably taste good next to your pancakes. He … has his own animated short? Yes, the Spectacular Spider-ham, admittedly the best character in ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ has a new standalone animated outing! It premiered on the Marvel HQ’s YouTube channel.
‘Spider-Ham: Caught in a Ham’ clocks in at just under four minutes, but packs the full punch of a Looney Tunes classic. In what we hope is just the first in a series of these shorts, Spider-Ham finds himself at the mercy of Craw Daddy. The crustacean-themed supervillain may have the drop on Peter Porker, but there’s an even bigger threat looming just on the other side of their dimension. Can Spider-Ham escape with his life and his hotdog?
RELATED: Hogging The Spotlight: Check Out John Mulaney As The Voice Of Spider-Ham New Featurette For ‘Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse
For a digitally animated film, it’s pretty good. I’m more of a classic 2D animation purist, but this little adventure had me hooked. There are a few mildly adult jokes and plenty of meta-humor. Sony’s version of Spider-Ham is a bit of a cross between Chuck Jones’s version Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck under director Bob Clampett. The tiny bit of cartoon violence and random silliness on display here makes one wish that the tiny piggy had more screentime once he lept into Miles’s dimension.
The short was originally teased back in February but made its first full appearance on the Blu-ray release of the feature film. ‘Spider-Ham: Caught in a Ham’ is written and directed by Miguel Jiron. He also served as the story artist on 2018’s ‘Spider-Verse’. The movie itself can currently be streamed on Netflix, or grab your own copy at Amazon.
Spider-Ham originally started out as a one-off character in the early 1980s. His first appearance was in ‘Marvel Tails Starring Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham’. During this era of comics, Marvel would sometimes go on these weird tangents with their characters. For a real WTF moment, try Googling ‘Power Pachyderms’.
Check out the short below.
