Spam (Monty Python)

Spam is a popular Monty Python sketch, first broadcast in 1970. The premise seems to be two customers trying to order a breakfast without SPAM from a menu which seemingly includes it in every item.

It features Terry Jones as the waitress, Eric Idle as Mr Bun and Graham Chapman as Mrs Bun. The televised skit also featured John Cleese as "The Hungarian", but this part was left out of audio recordings of the sketch.

Only two minutes long, it builds up into a semi-argument between the waitress who is proffering spam and only spam, and Mrs Bun who does not want it:

Waitress: (brightly) "Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it."

Mrs Bun: (exasperated) "I don't want ANY spam!"

Mr Bun asks if he can have his wife's Spam:

Mr Bun: "Can I have spam then instead of the baked beans?"

Waitress: "You mean spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam..."

This leads into a group of Vikings at the cafe drown out all conversation by singing more and more loudly a song about "Spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam" till it builds to an operatic climax.

The sketch was the final sketch of the 25th show of Monty Python's Flying Circus, and was first aired December 15, 1970. Despite its shortness, the sketch achieved immense popularity. The word "Spam" is mentioned 94 times.

SPAM was one of the few meats excluded from the British food rationing that began in World War II and continued for a number of years after the war and the British grew heartily tired of it, hence the sketch.

The phenomenon, some years later, of marketers drowning out discourse by flooding Usenet newsgroups and individuals' email addresses with junk advertising messages was named spamming in honour of this sketch.