The fifth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons originally aired on the Fox network between September 30, 1993, and May 19, 1994. The showrunner for the fifth production season was David Mirkin who executive produced 20 episodes. Al Jean and Mike Reiss executive produced the remaining two, which were both hold overs that were produced for the previous season. The season contains some of the series' most acclaimed and popular episodes, including "Cape Feare", "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy", "Homer Goes to College", "Deep Space Homer " and "Rosebud". It also includes the 100th episode, "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song". The season was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards and won an Annie Award for Best Animated Television Program as well as an Environmental Media Award and a Genesis Award. The DVD box set was released in Region 1 on December 21, 2004, Region 2 on March 21, 2005, and Region 4 on March 23, 2005.
Production
The season was the first to be executive produced by David Mirkin, who would also run the following season. Several of the show's original writers who had worked on The Simpsons since the first season had left following the completion of season four. "Cape Feare", which was the final episode to be produced by the "original team", aired during this season as a hold over. Jay Kogen, Wallace Wolodarsky, Sam Simon and Jeff Martin wrote their final episodes for the season four production run. Show runners Al Jean and Mike Reiss left to produce their own series The Critic, but returned in subsequent seasons to produce more Simpsons episodes, and Jean again became the show runner starting with season thirteen. George Meyer and John Swartzwelder, Conan O'Brien, Frank Mula and future show runners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein all stayed with the show following the previous season. O'Brien would leave the series halfway through the production of the season to host his own show on NBC, Late Night with Conan O'Brien. He had been working on "Homer Goes to College" when he found out he was chosen to host Late Night and was forced to walk out on his contract. He later had a cameo appearance in "Bart Gets Famous". He recorded his part while Late Night was on the air, but O'Brien thought that his show might be canceled by the time the episode aired.
A whole new group of writers were brought in for this season. Jace Richdale was the first to be hired by Mirkin and others to receive their first writing credits were Greg Daniels and Dan McGrath. Mike Scully wrote "Lisa's Rival", which was produced for this season, but aired the next. Two freelance writers wrote episodes: David Richardson wrote "Homer Loves Flanders" while Bill Canterbury received two writing credits. Bob Anderson and Susie Dietter, who had previously worked on the show as part of the animation staff, would direct their first episodes.