“The Simpsons” Special w/ Bill Oakley (Writer/Showrunner)

Sending Signals

Bill Oakley, along with his best friend and writing partner Josh Weinstein, wrote various episodes of The Simpsons during it’s glory days including “Marge Gets A Job”, “Bart vs Australia”, and the legendary 2-part season-straddling “Who Shot Mr Burns”, and they were appointed executive producers and showrunners for the 7th and 8th seasons of the show, where they continued to push the envelope of what the show could be, bowing out while the show was still on a high.

One of Bill’s greatest claims to fame is having written the “Steamed Hams” scene from the 1996 episode “22 Short Films About Springfield”.

The scene has taken on a life of its own with various memes and recontextualizing videos springing up on the internet.

Bill and Josh also created the short lived Mission Hill, and were consulting producers on Futurama. Bill has also worked on shows like Portlandia and The Cleveland Show.

In 2018 Bill started to produce short Instagram videos of himself reviewing fast food items from American outlets. These videos have become a serious concern for Oakley, and he created the annual Steamie Awards, in reference to the steamed hams sketch of course.

If you’re a big Simpsons fan I hope you get something out of this, but if you’re more of a casual viewer I hope you’ll find it interesting to learn how a show like this gets made.

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