American cheese known for being melty, famous for being fast foodie. Nobody thinks much about it, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why American cheese is secretly incredibly fascinating. Fascinating.

Hey there, folks.

Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is.

My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone because my guest today is Bill Oakley.

Bill Oakley is on the show. Very exciting to me. He is an amazing comedy writer all around,

part of many TV shows, the former head writer and showrunner of The Simpsons, and he runs the Steamed Ham's Society, because he is the writer behind the Steamed Ham's segment of the

Simpsons that has taken on its own amazing life online and beyond.

And Steamed Ham Society is a great place to discover food, talk about food, be excited about food.

I'll let him plug it fully within the episode.

Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native dash land.c.a

to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of

the Canarsie and Lanabi peoples. I acknowledge Bill recorded this on the traditional land of the

Cowlitz, Clackamas, and Silates peoples, as well as many of the confederated tribes of the

Grand Rond. And acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still

here. That feels worth doing on each episode, and today's episode is about American Cheese.

American Cheese is a patron chosen topic. Thank you to Jimmy Rulo for that suggestion,

also to Tony Fahey for the broader suggestion

of cheese, because this is the first cheese ever covered on the podcast.

And the stars really aligned here.

You will hear how excited Bill is about it, how excited I am about it, and how much of a

nice time we had talking about it together.

So, please sit back or arrive at Principal Skinner's mother's house, despite his

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