CHALMERS: Well, Seymour, I made it, despite your directions.

SKINNER: Ah, Superintendent Chalmers, welcome. I hope you�re prepared
for an unforgettable luncheon!

So began a segment that would eventually become one of the most famous comedy
shorts of all time. Originally called �Chalmers vs. Skinner,� the two-
minute-and-48-second piece was part of an unusual episode of The Simpsons
that aired during the show�s seventh season, on April 14, 1996. While most
episodes of The Simpsons focus on the show�s titular family, �22 Short Films
About Springfield� was different, as it was broken up into a series of short
segments focusing on Springfield�s supporting characters. �Steamed Hams� � as
�Chalmers vs. Skinner� would later come to be known � was simply one of those
segments.

https://youtu.be/4jXEuIHY9ic

But in the 24 years since it first aired, the piece has taken on a new and
unusual life, finding itself an enduring internet phenomenon that has
included memes, remixes, remakes and even the occasional reference in real
life. It all began, though, back in mid-1995, in the writers room of The
Simpsons.

Bill Oakley , The Simpsons writer from 1992 to 1998 and co-showrunner from
1995 to 1997: One of the very first weeks Josh Weinstein and I were at The
Simpsons, they did this episode called �The Front,� which was about Grandpa
getting credit for writing those Itchy & Scratchy cartoons. Back in those
days, [showrunners] Mike Reiss and Al Jean trimmed the shows tight and they
often came in too short. Like, that was why that Sideshow Bob rake gag got
repeated, because an episode ran short.

Anyway, �The Front� was so short that they actually wrote a little segment
called �The Adventures of Ned Flanders.� It was really corny and short, and
we thought it was so funny. So Josh and I always wanted to do more of those,
but every one of our episodes was so bloated that we never had the chance.

Midway through Season Seven, when Josh and I were the showrunners, we
realized we were never going to be able to do any of those little shorts. One
of us, Josh or me, had the idea of, �Let�s do a whole episode of nothing but
those things.� This was just around the time Pulp Fiction had come out and
there were a couple of other things that were little bits and pieces that
were intertwined like that, so we were like, �What if we did a whole episode
like that, but with all the characters in Springfield?� We fell in love with
the idea immediately, so that was the genesis of it.

We had to figure out how we were going to do this, so we decided that we were
going to have everybody on staff get a chance to write for their favorite
character. To make it fair, it was basically like a football draft and
everybody got to pick a number and go in order and call dibs on their
favorite characters to write a little segment for. My very first choice was
Superintendent Chalmers and Principal Skinner. It might�ve just been
Chalmers, but I think Skinner came along with the package.

Chalmers has always been my favorite character in The Simpsons because he�s
the only somewhat sane person in town. I love that dynamic where Skinner
tells a crazy lie, Chalmers calls him on it, Skinner then makes up another
lie and Chalmers asks maybe one more question, but then gives up. This was
always so funny to me, that Chalmers kind of knows that Skinner�s lying, but
he doesn�t care enough to pursue it. Either that, or he�s learned where the
boundaries exist in the Springfield universe. He knows that you don�t probe
too deeply, otherwise you get screwed.

Skinner, on the other hand, is the funny one, and you can�t have that dynamic
without the preposterous liar. Josh and I always loved to write Skinner
because he was so much like so many of the teachers that we had in our high
school. The thing about Skinner is that he has such a deep voice that
commands respect, so when he lies, the sound of his voice flies in the face
of the silly things he says.

Anyway, so I called Chalmers and everybody went off and I think we had a week
to write it, which is a pretty good amount of time. For me, I wrote mine all
in one sitting on like a Saturday afternoon or something. The idea was to use
this corny situation � that the boss is coming over for dinner and someone
burned the roast, a sitcom staple going all the way back into the days of
radio. So that was the premise: Chalmers is coming over and Skinner�s burned
the meal.

SKINNER: Oh, ye Gods! My roast is ruined!� But what if� I were to
purchase fast food and disguise it as my own cooking? Ooh,
delightfully devilish, Seymour.

Oakley: From there, I decided that it had to be a series of unbelievable
lies. Normally, Chalmers doesn�t pursue them, but this time, he does. So, as
opposed to asking one follow-up question and giving up � which was his normal
MO � he asked about 13 to 16 follow-up questions that each required Skinner
to make up a more preposterous lie. Finally, it ends with the Aurora Borealis
in Skinner�s kitchen.

SKINNER: Superintendent! I was just stretching my calves on the
windowsill! Isometric exercise. Care to join me?

Sean Salazar , personal trainer and owner of Anywhere Gym : Isometric
exercise is basically an exercise where you�re not moving � a plank, for
example. Your muscles are working, but you�re holding a position. With
Principal Skinner, when he�s saying he�s doing an isometric exercise by
stretching his leg in the window, some people argue that stretching is an
isometric activity, so some would say that yes, he�s doing an isometric
exercise.

CHALMERS: Why is there smoke coming out of your oven, Seymour?

SKINNER: Oh, that isn�t smoke. It�s steam. Steam from the steamed
clams we�re having. Mmmm, steamed clams.

Oakley: As for the whole thing with �steamed hams� and �steamed clams,� I
just needed a phony lie that rhymed. I actually didn�t know at that time that
steamed clams was a real dish and then steamed hams just seemed like a
preposterous, half-assed lie.

So I turned in the segment, which was by far the longest one in the whole
show, but since I was the showrunner I kind of stuffed it in. Greg Daniels
was supervising the writing for this thing, which basically meant that he
figured out the right order for the segments to go in and punched some things
up. Mine remained largely unchanged, but he did have a couple of changes.
Also, Ken Keeler wrote the little song for �Steamed Hams,� that wasn�t me.

The thing is, at the time, I didn�t even know if it was funny. The table read
for the episode wasn�t all that successful, but we decided to do it anyway.
After it broadcasted, we never really heard anything about it for years
afterwards. Steamed Hams didn�t even become a thing until 2016, when some
Australian grocery store kept getting calls from people asking for steamed
hams.

Brad Esposito, BuzzFeed , June 29, 2016, excerpt from � Hundreds of People
Won�t Stop Asking This Grocery Store for Steamed Hams �: Australian grocery
chain Woolworths says �about 1,000 people� have commented on its Facebook
page asking for steamed hams. �It started Monday night,� a Woolworths social
media specialist told BuzzFeed News. �We�ve had about 1,000 people come and
make comments about it. Lots of fun banter.�

Robin, founder of the Steamed Hams Facebook group : I started the Facebook
group in 2009, and at the time, I was just gregariously clicking �like� on
everything and starting groups. I thought �steamed hams� was a fun thing for
people to be able to click to say they liked. The group amassed 6,000 or
7,000 followers before I stopped posting in 2011. Since then, it�s been
largely defunct, so I�m not sure that the Steamed Hams craze started with me.
What�s interesting, though, is that I�m in New Zealand, and over 50 percent
of the group members are from Australia, so maybe it�s related to the calls
to that Australian grocery store. I don�t know.

Sarah Croft, The Simpsons fan and creator of the Memed Hams Reddit thread : I
started the Reddit thread Memed Hams at the beginning of June 2016, which is
just a few weeks before the Woolworths thing. I live in Canada, so I�m not
sure it had anything to do with that, and I don�t take credit for the Steamed
Hams Memes. There are Simpsons Shitposting meme groups on Facebook and
Steamed Hams would show up there from time to time. Steamed Hams memes were
my favorite since it�s one of the funniest segments of the whole show.

Don Caldwell , internet historian and editor-in-chief of Know Your Meme :
Steamed Hams has kind of a weird meme history in that it was a slow burn.
There are a number of memes that are old and take a while to peak, and
Steamed Hams is one of those. It�s old, of course, because it comes from that
1996 Simpsons episode, but online, it was put into the Urban Dictionary in
2007 and there was a Facebook group started in 2009. But that�s not what
seems to have made this explode online. What might have happened is that,
because The Simpsons is so popular, it could have arisen independently in
multiple ways as an inside joke.