It’s fitting that comedy icon John Cleese will stop in San Jose on Sept. 14, given the city’s place at the heart of Silicon Valley and Monty Python’s absurdly significant contribution to technology culture. Thanks to Cleese and his colleagues, what was once a vanilla acronym—UCE, or Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail—is today more colorfully known as “spam.” Adopted by the Oxford English Dictionary in 1998 and the U.S. Congress and the Federal Trade Commission in their CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, the rebranding has its roots in a famously untethered 1970 episode of the British television series Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
In a conversation last week, Cleese reflected on its origins. “I’d always been fascinated by eating at transport cafes, which is where the truck drivers eat,” he recalled. “There was always a menu on a blackboard…and so when I wrote a sketch with Graham, about a menu at a transport cafe, which had increasing amounts of spam in it. And we just got very silly. We laughed and we wrote things like, as you know, egg spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, tomatoes, spam, spam and cheese.”
He explained that the sketch was expanded by Python member Terry Jones, who is credited as the sketch’s co-writer with Michael Palin, and who “realized that it could be extended by having Vikings and that was wonderful.” The scene with the Vikings chanting “spam, spam, spam, spam” became a classic, and Cleese was delighted when he discovered that software engineers, who were early fans of the show, had adopted the term. “I was so thrilled by that,” he said. “I thought it was so great. It was a lovely sort of salute from the computer world.”
The flying circus is also credited with inspiring the naming of the programming language Python, a foundation of the contemporary technology ecosystem, from Instagram to Uber, by computer scientist Guido van Rossum.
The conversation also touched on another of Cleese’s comedic masterpieces, Fawlty Towers, which was inspired by a real-life hotel experience. While filming with the Python team near Torquay, they stayed at the Gleneagles Hotel, run by a “most extraordinary man.” Cleese recounts walking into the lobby with Jones, who was met with a strong and curt “Oh, what!?” from the hotelier after a simple “hello.” The interaction, Cleese says, summed up “the motto of the time for British hoteliers, which is we could run this place properly if it wasn’t for the guests.”
Cleese also discussed the film A Fish Called Wanda, including the memorable scene where he is hung upside down from a second-story window by the sociopathic and dimwitted Otto, played by Kevin Kline, who demands an apology after an insult. Known for performing his own stunts, Cleese assured us it wasn’t dangerous. “I had a steel wire, attached at two different points to a sort of canvas body suit, and at the other end my weight was attached to scaffolding,” he explained. The only real pressure, he joked, was to get the scene right in one take so he didn’t have to hang upside down for long.
When asked what still excites him about comedy, Cleese said he loves seeing an audience “rocking with laughter. Not just smiling and nodding, but really, really laughing.” He expressed concern that this is less common today, as people are “frightened about giving offense” due to the “woke movement.” While acknowledging the admirable aspects of the movement, he argues that humor is inherently critical. “What we laugh at is people’s foibles. When they make things wrong, when they’re stupid, or greedy, or that sort of thing,” he explained. But he stressed that this laughter isn’t unkind, noting that “laughter can be very affectionate.”
Fans can look forward to Cleese’s unique live show, “Not Dead Yet! John Cleese and The Holy Grail at 50,” on Sept. 14 at the San Jose Civic. Cleese describes the event as very simple: “I come out, I introduce the show, I talk a little bit about the history of how it started. … Then after that, we show the film, and then the audience can ask me anything they like for about an hour and a half.”
The audience Q&A is what Cleese seems to love most. “I love the process because I never know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what’s going to be asked. Sometimes it’s very surprising,” he said. The show offers a chance for fans to connect, and as Cleese notes, “It’s a wonderful experience to be in with the audience laughing. There’s not a lot of that these days, and I’ve tried to do what I can to remedy that.”
Dan Pulcrano contributed to this article.
Not Dead Yet! John Cleese and The Holy Grail at 50 begins at 7:30pm on Sept 14 at the San Jose Civic, 135 W San Carlos St, San Jose. Tickets: $81–$218. sanjosetheaters.org
