{"id":2372984,"date":"2026-04-14T15:26:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2372984"},"modified":"2026-04-14T15:26:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:26:14","slug":"former-simpsons-showrunner-to-speak-in-albany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/former-simpsons-showrunner-to-speak-in-albany\/","title":{"rendered":"Former ‘Simpsons’ showrunner to speak in Albany"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Thirty years ago Tuesday, one of the more meme-worthy scenes in the long history of \u201cThe Simpsons\u201d connected a phrase to the Capital Region.<\/p>\n

On April 14, 1996, the episode \u201c22 Short Films About Springfield\u201d aired on the Fox network, and it included the popular \u201csteamed hams\u201d scene.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not familiar with \u201cThe Simpsons,\u201d the scene<\/a> shows Springfield Elementary School Principal Seymour Skinner concocting a \u201cdelightfully devilish\u201d plan to replace his burnt roast with fast-food hamburgers \u2013 re-branded as homemade \u201csteamed hams,\u201d which he says is an Albany expression \u2013 during a dinner with his boss, Superintendent Chalmers.<\/p>\n

The unforgettable luncheon scene is now often recalled through internet memes, and is the most notable Capital Region and\/or upstate New York reference in the series\u2019 history (Superintendent Chalmers, it\u2019s revealed in the scene, is a Utica native).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call hamburgers hamburgers here in Albany, and I can\u2019t recall any customers ever requesting \u2018steamed hams,’ ” Crave Burgers and Frozen Yogurt chef and owner Devin Ziemann told Mel Magazine in a 2020 article on the famous scene. \u201cI might have to make it a special now, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

To celebrate the occasion, former “Simpsons” writer and showrunner Bill Oakley, who wrote the scene, will speak about its creation and legacy Tuesday night at Druthers Brewing Company in Albany. Limited tickets are still available;<\/a> the brewpub is offering “steamed hams,” despite the fact that they are obviously grilled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source spectrumlocalnews.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thirty years ago Tuesday, one of the more meme-worthy scenes in the long history of \u201cThe Simpsons\u201d connected a phrase to the Capital Region. On April 14, 1996, the episode \u201c22 Short Films About Springfield\u201d aired on the Fox network, and it included the popular \u201csteamed hams\u201d scene. If you\u2019re not familiar with \u201cThe Simpsons,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2372985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[430948,22694,21741,461647,21738],"class_list":["post-2372984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-albany-capital-region","tag-app-arts-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-matthew-sprague","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Former-Simpsons-showrunner-to-speak-in-Albany.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2372984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2372986,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372984\/revisions\/2372986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2372985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2372984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2372984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2372984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}