The internet: What happens when the psycho kid in high school shotguns a Red Bull and stabs a hornet’s nest with his face. The global service facilitating the free exchange of memes has offered up more than its fair share of spicy content in the past, but by far one of the most enduring repeated jokes of modern times is the literally-everywhere Steamed Hams routine.
The classic Simpsons skit featuring Seymour Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers enjoying an ill-fated dinner, one punctuated by the greatest bad explanation joke ever put to air, has been given new life thanks to shitposting pages; re-done to death and beyond in a mountain of different variations that somehow defy all logical explanation by remaining incredibly funny every single time.
But on the latest – and most high-profile one yet – things have gotten a bit muddy.
You might have seen a Steamed Hams effort posted by GameSpot doing the rounds earlier this morning. The crux of the now-deleted meme is this: at a press junket for the upcoming game Jurassic World: Evolution, the company somehow got Jeff Goldblum, the golden throat himself, to get in on the Hams joke by stepping into the role of Skinner, putting a gilded, baritone spin on classic Simpsons dialogue.
Was it good? Abso-bloody-lutely. But just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished from all of GameSpot’s social media channels. And it would appear that golden-era Simpsons-era writer Bill Oakley has something to do with it.
Oakley took exception to GameSpot ostensibly lifting a writer’s previous work and re-purposing it for their own use without credit.
It should be noted that Oakley is a vocal supporter and fan of shitposting and memes created by fans and shared freely online purely for its own sake. Where he draws the line, apparently, is specifically created and uncredited work created for-profit.
In a string of tweets, Oakley teed off on GameSpot, expressing annoyance and the lack of crediting for the scene’s original writer Joe Blevins, but also at why they would ask Goldblum, of all people, to participate given that Goldblum himself already exists inside the Simpsons extended universe.
https://twitter.com/thatbilloakley/status/980483251583074304
https://twitter.com/thatbilloakley/status/980484656259784704
https://twitter.com/thatbilloakley/status/980490692408459264
https://twitter.com/thatbilloakley/status/980519267190784001
https://twitter.com/thatbilloakley/status/980566781914890240
Therein lies the rub, folks. Memelording is a fine line to tread, but it’s always important to credit your sources. Particularly if you’re reading a script someone else wrote.
Now to take a big sip of piss and wait for the comments on this one…
