Spam (Monty Python sketch): Difference between revisions

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"'''Spam'''" is a [[Monty Python]] [[sketch comedy|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 [[Cafe (British)|greasy spoon café]] and try to order a [[breakfast]] from a [[menu]] that includes [[spam (food)|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!".<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.thegoodword.co.uk/2010/09/20/the-origin-of-the-word-spam/| title = The Origin of the word 'Spam'| agency = The Good Word| access-date = 23 August 2019| archive-date = 16 December 2019| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20191216040211/http://www.thegoodword.co.uk/2010/09/20/the-origin-of-the-word-spam/| url-status = dead}}</ref>

The excessive amount of Spam was probably a reference to the ubiquity of it and other imported [[Potted meat|canned meat products]] in the [[United Kingdom]] after [[World War II]] (a [[Rationing in the United Kingdom|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.<ref name="Longmate"/>

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 [[Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook|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 [[Single (music)|7" single]].