“You call hamburgers ‘Steamed Hams’?” – Superintendent Chalmers
“Yes. It’s a regional dialect.” – Principal Skinner
“Uh-huh, what region?” – Superintendent Chalmers
“Uh, upstate New York.” – Principal Skinner
“Really. Well, I’m from Utica and I’ve never heard anyone use the phrase ‘Steamed Hams’.” – Superintendent Chalmers
“Oh, not in Utica, no, it’s an Albany expression.” – Principal Skinner
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charliesweatpants.com
(The crotch really does wear out too fast.)
Dead Homer Society 
He should’ve said Plattsburgh.
i really hope restaurants in Albany now have steamed hams on their menus…
hmmmm
(gets business idea, pulls out map to Albany, runs out, tires screeching)
you have to admit, that’s a nice presentation of steamed hams and fries on that long platter!
I live in Australia so I have NO IDEA about the places they talk about, but the delivery and animation on the characters tells me everything I need to know. Obvious assumption is that Utica is in upstate New York. But I do wonder if Albany is there too, or if it would be considered not really part of it. I could look it up but I’m sure you guys can describe the situation better.
Still funny as ever, of course. I’ve been to a place called Albany (pronounced AL-ba-knee) but it’s in the south western corner of Australia rather than the north eastern part of the United States of America.
There’s like 20 miles between them. The joke’s intended to be Skinner’s last resort at lying, since Albany is the capital of NY. His lies really do suck.
Nice. Icing on top of a very well constructed joke. Thank you.
I live in Western Australia and, funnily enough, while I’ve been to Albany, New York (I have relatives who live there), I don’t believe I’ve ever been to Albany, Western Australia.
I live in NSW but I love the SW corner of WA so much. Windy. Cold. Bleak. Remote, despite being not-all-that-far from stuff. Totally where my dream house would be were I to win lotto. Good to know there’s other Aussies here!
Are thar anee kangaroos, mate?
“aurora borealis”
The Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your kitchen?
“Yes”
Heh.
May I see it?
“Uhh, No”
This scene doesn’t feel like the normal humour on the show. It’s still great, of course.
Well, that whole part was supposed to be a send-up of cheesy sitcoms that do those “Inviting the boss over for dinner” stories. Plus, it was from an episode that tried to mix different types of tones and humor (“22 Short Films About Springfield,” where Bart and Milhouse wonder if anyone in town has crazy adventures, and that’s what we get for the next 20-odd minutes minus commercial breaks, mostly one-off scenes, sitcom set pieces, and interconnecting stories a la “Pulp Fiction”).
At least they’re both completely within character. Suspicious Chalmers and awkward nervously-laughing Skinner. That’s exactly the way I remember them.
so many comments for this particular post!
Just goes to show what an impact this particular mini-episode had!
Almost 20-years old and people still talk about it!
Well, then here’s something you probably didn’t know about this episode: Matt Groening originally wanted to make a Simpsons spin-off show (not the parody on season 8, an actual companion show to The Simpsons) that just focused on the other people in Springfield and this episode was supposed to be the pilot to that episode. Groening never did follow through on the spin-off, but we got a great episode out of it.
Wow.
That was a sign he was already tiring of the main characters, I guess. I’m terrible with the dates and all. When did he officially stop being part of the process? Would it maybe have been something he pushed aside when he began to focus on Futurama? I’d ALMOST like to see him come back and DO that show but I don’t think it’d quite have the same zing of freshness to it now that we’ve had 13-17 years (depending on your own reckoning) of banal, terrible “fleshing out” of the rest of Springfield. Obviously we all have characters we’d have liked to have seen more of, but really, getting to see more of Miss Hoover would have delighted me. Always bugged me they never did more with her.
Whoa, LOL! It would have sucked big time after like 20 episodes or so. No wonder he stuck with the main stuff.