"This is Spam," says Eric Idle to a room full of Japanese journalists, holding up a can of the precooked meat product that he and his fellow Monty Python cast members mocked to lasting effect in 1970 in their iconic BBC TV series.
That early "Monty Python's Flying Circus" sketch — set in a working-class cafe whose menu was composed almost entirely of this cheap filler food — led to the word "spam" being associated with junk email, and a reference to the original gag helped form the title of Idle's comedy musical "Spamalot" when it opened on Broadway in 2005.
And now "Spamalot" is opening in Japan. And Spam is the unlikely headline sponsor.
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