Spam (Monty Python sketch)

"Spam" is a Monty Python sketch, first televised in 1970 on Monty Python's Flying Circus (series 2, episode 12, "Spam") and written by Terry Jones and Michael Palin. In the sketch, two customers are lowered by wires into a greasy spoon café and try to order a breakfast from a menu that includes Spam in almost every dish, much to the consternation of one of the customers. As the waitress recites the Spam-filled menu, a group of Viking patrons drown out all conversations with a song, repeating "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam… Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!".

The excessive amount of Spam was probably a reference to the ubiquity of it and other imported canned meat products in the United Kingdom after World War II (a period of rationing in the UK) as the country struggled to rebuild its agricultural base. Thanks to its wartime ubiquity, the British public had grown tired of it.

The televised sketch and several subsequent performances feature Terry Jones as the waitress, Eric Idle as Mr. Bun and Graham Chapman as Mrs. Bun, who does not like Spam. The original sketch also featured John Cleese as The Hungarian and Palin as a historian, but this part was left out of the audio version of the sketch recorded for the team's second album Another Monty Python Record (1971). A year later this track was released as the Pythons' first 7" single.

The use of the term spam for unsolicited electronic communications is derived from this sketch.

The three-and-a-half-minute sketch is set in the fictional Green Midget Cafe in Bromley. An argument develops between the waitress, who recites a menu in which nearly every dish contains Spam, and Mrs. Bun, who does not like Spam. She asks for a dish without Spam, much to the amazement of her Spam-loving husband. The waitress responds to this request with disgust. Mr. Bun offers to take her Spam instead, and asks for a dish containing a lot of Spam and baked beans. The waitress says the beans are not available; when Mr. Bun asks for a substitution of Spam, the waitress begins reading out the new dish's name.

At several points, a group of Vikings in the restaurant interrupt conversations by loudly singing about Spam. The irate waitress orders them to shut up, but they resume singing more loudly. A Hungarian tourist comes to the counter, trying to order by using a wholly inaccurate Hungarian/English phrasebook (a reference to a previous sketch). He is rapidly escorted away by a police constable.

The sketch abruptly cuts to a historian in a television studio talking about the origin of the Vikings in the café. As he goes on, he begins to increasingly insert the word "Spam" into every sentence, and the backdrop is raised to reveal the restaurant set behind. The historian joins the Vikings in their song, and Mr. and Mrs. Bun are lifted by wires out of the scene while the singing continues. In the original televised performance, the closing credits (which also have "Spam" inserted in various points among others) begin to scroll with the singing still audible in the background.

The sketch premiered on 15 December 1970 as the final sketch of the 25th show of Monty Python's Flying Circus, and the end credits for the episode were changed so every member of the crew has either Spam or some other food item from the menu added to their names. (Spam Terry Jones, Michael Spam Palin, John Spam John Spam John Spam Cleese, Graham Spam Spam Spam Chapman, Eric Spam Egg and Chips Idle, Terry Spam Sausage Spam Egg Spam Gilliam, etc.) The "Spam" sketch became immensely popular, and was ranked the fifth favourite Python sketch in a poll. The word "Spam" is uttered at least 132 times. The Vikings' Spam song is a parody of "The Viking Song" by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.