Watch John Mulaney’s Spider-Ham In A New ‘Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse’ Short

“Don’t worry people, it’s 100 percent beef!” John Mulaney’s Spectacular Spider-Ham chirps to the audience as he swings about the city in his new short, holding a hot dog aloft. “I’m lying.”

Though it didn’t receive the hype and attention of its live-action counterparts at the time of its premiere, animated film Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse quickly emerged as one of the best superhero films released last year.

This is a big call, considering 2018 also gave us the game-changing Black Panther, the long-awaited Incredibles 2, and also began the end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Infinity Saga with Avengers: Infinity War. Even so, I feel comfortable making it.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a film filled not only with striking, comic-inspired visuals that make it a delightful spectacle to watch. It is also filled with witty, warm humour and personable characters, making it feel even more grounded than the MCU in some ways. Plus, it has a killer soundtrack.

Amongst all this, one of the biggest surprises of the film was Spider-Ham. A Looney Tunes-style cartoon pig in a skintight spider-suit, the character seemed at first to be the kind of annoying mascot film executives want included to appeal to kids.

However, Peter Porker quickly hammered his way into audiences’ hearts, helped in no small part by the fact that he is voiced by much loved comedian and tall child John Mulaney. Now, a full Spider-Ham short created for the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Blu-ray has is available to watch online.

The four-minute short is presented as an episode of a fictional Saturday morning cartoon called “Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham”. It also features all the slapstick and silliness inherent in old school examples of the genre.

Written and directed by Miguel Jiron, and taking place prior to the film, ‘Caught in a Ham’ follows Spider-Ham’s simple quest to enjoy an implicitly cannibalistic hot dog, only to be thwarted by an aspiring supervillain who needs to workshop a better name. And then things get weird.

‘Caught in a Ham’ isn’t quite as sharp as the feature film it spun off from, but then again, they are set in entirely different universes. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is currently available to stream on Foxtel Now and Amazon Prime Video. I highly recommend it.