INTERVIEW: BILL OAKLEY
We managed to get ahold of Bill Oakley to answer some questions, because I will take ANY opportunity to pester my writing heroes about utterly nonsensical memes they inspired. In case you didn't know, Oakley is the individual responsible for the "steamed hams" segment, and is thus responsible for the spread of this genre of shitpost. I wanted to know his feelings on the matter:
Have you ever heard of or seen "Simpsons shitposts"? Specifically the trend of mixed-reference shitposts? Sorry for typing "shitpost" so much.
Yes, I have seen hundreds and hundreds of them and I love almost all of them.
What's your take on Simpsons shitposting?
I think your analysis is spot-on. It is remixing references which have grown pretty tired after 20 straight years and putting them together in new and delightful ways. Actually my only quibble is that I don't think they are shitty so I think the term is a misnomer.
I agree that the term "shitpost" isn't really ideal for this subgenre, which feels like an honest-to-goodness art form, if a highly specific one. Maybe "fishbulbs"?
I like fishbulbs!
When you originally wrote the "steamed hams" sequence of 22 Short Films About Springfield, did you feel you had struck something meaningful?
No, I had no idea whether it was funny or not. I thought there was a possibility it might be terrifically unfunny, in fact. It was extremely self-indulgent of me to write the longest segment in the entire episode and not include a single "traditional" joke and I thought there was a huge possibility it might get cut. When I turned the script into Greg Daniels, who was coordinating the episode, I seem to recall he read through it without laughing once. And the table read was a pretty big failure at the time too. It seems to have gotten a lot more popular as time went on -- which I appreciate.
When did you start realizing "steamed hams" had become a legitimate meme unto itself?
I feel like I first noticed it three or four years ago, on Twitter and to a lesser degree on Facebook. Then when this happened about 18 months ago (
https://www.buzzfeed.com/bradesposito/thousands-of-people-keep-asking-this-grocery-store). I knew the whole thing had taken off and since then it has been feeding on itself. I have a feeling "Inventor of Steamed Hams" is going to be on my tombstone now.
Do you have a favorite "steamed hams" meme, shitpost, or video? There are a ton - someone even turned the scene into a track in Guitar Hero.
My favorite one is the one my kids made me two years ago for Christmas, which is a live action reenactment of the entire segment, word for word and shot for shot, starring them. They even had steam coming out of Seymour's oven (my actual oven) for the flaming roast. However I am never putting this online because it shows how messy my house is.
Besides that one, I like the one where Seymour never answers the door and Chalmers just remains standing on the porch forever. But there are so many other good ones too, I just can't recall them at the moment.
However my favorite shitpost of all, which is not steamed hams-related, is the super-cut of the all the "You got the Dud" mash-ups which I believe it so incredibly hysterical it may have given me a slight brain aneurysm.
Have Simpsons Shitposts given you any deeper appreciation of old jokes that otherwise were semi-forgotten? Moe's "here's the 4-1-1" bit is now one of the MOST FREQUENTLY-CITED Simpsons jokes - a bit that wasn't even on most fans' radars before a few years ago.
I had no idea people liked the lemon stuff that much, or Kirk's drawing of dignity. And till you sent me this, I didn't think anyone remembered the "paint my chicken coop" bit.
Do you (or any other former/current Simpsons writers) send EACH OTHER these mash-up shitposts ever? Would love to know if anyone is sending these to John Schwartzwelder.
To my knowledge we don't send them to each other, no, but we might tag each other in them in twitter or cc' one another sometimes. Mainly for me it'd be Josh or Dan Greaney on Twitter, I am not in touch with most of the others
I have not communicated with Swartzwelder, I have no idea how one would send them to him other than tag or cc him on twitter as I suspect he does not own a cell phone or anything like that.
What's the next rich vein of Simpsons Shitposting people should be diving into? Moe's "Oh, dear god, NO!" from Bart's Comet? Homer's "It's pretty big...I guess." from Bart vs. Australia? Something completely different? In other words, what's your favorite Simpsons reference that you don't see get referenced ENOUGH?
I would like to see more Itchy & Scratchy stuff but I realize that's hard to mash-up. But I guess most of all I would like to see a lot more of the McCrary twins on their minibikes.