Steamed Hams

This week's meme, "Steamed Hams," is a video. It is a clip from the episode "22 Short Films about Springfield" from the animated series The Simpsons. In the scene, Principal Skinner invites Superintendent Chalmers over for dinner. The dinner, however, goes awry. Skinner burns the dinner, forcing him to come up with lies about what's happened. He tells Chalmers that he’s making “steamed clams” for dinner, and then runs to get hamburgers from Krusty Burger. When Chalmers is confused by this, Skinner tells him that he made “steamed hams” instead, what he calls hamburgers. Here's the original clip.

The episode first aired on April 14, 1996. While the term "steamed hams" has been joked about on the internet since it was posted to Urban Dictionary on November 15, 2007, the video itself didn't become a meme until recently. Memes of the video are often titled "Steamed hams but _" with it's differential quality in the blank. Here are some examples.

I think this meme caught on for several reasons. One reason is that The Simpsons is a source of nostalgia for many, so it's has wide appeal. This particular scene is also hilarious and the dialogue is very well-written. One can memorize the scene easily, so when the meme interrupts the natural flow, it is noticeable and humorous. I hope to see more video-based memes like it in the future.