<P> During the fourth season the episode "A Streetcar Named Marge" was produced . The musical within the episode contains a controversial song about New Orleans, which describes the city as a "home of pirates, drunks and whores", among other things . Jeff Martin, the writer of the episode, had meant the song to be a parody of the opening number in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which speaks of London in unflattering terms . A New Orleans critic viewed "A Streetcar Named Marge" and published the song lyrics in his newspaper before the episode aired . Many readers took the lyrics out of context, and New Orleans' Fox affiliate, WNOL, received about one hundred complaints on the day the episode aired . Several local radio stations also held on - air protests in response to the song . The Simpsons' producers rushed out an apologetic chalkboard gag for "Homer the Heretic", which aired a week after "A Streetcar Named Marge". It read, "I will not defame New Orleans". </P> <P> Ullman filed a lawsuit in 1992, claiming that her show was the source of The Simpsons' success and therefore should receive a share of the show's profit . "I breast - fed those little devils," Ullman once said of The Simpsons . She wanted a share of The Simpsons' merchandising and gross profits and believed she was entitled to $2.5 million of Fox's estimated $50 million in 1992 . The Fox network had paid her $58,000 in royalties for The Simpsons as well as $3 million for the 31⁄2 seasons her show was on the air . Eventually the courts ruled in favor of the network . </P> <P> 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 . David Mirkin took over as showrunner and executive producer for the fifth and sixth season . In The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History (2009), John Ortved describes Mirkin as an "outsider" on the show as, unlike the bulk of the writing staff, Mirkin was not a Harvard University graduate . The writing staff were, at least initially, divided on Mirkin's abilities as a leader . Mirkin conducted the show's writing sessions in one room, rather than splitting the writers into two groups as other showrunners had done, and often worked late into the night . Writer Richard Appel praised Mirkin's leadership and comedy style, saying that "the shows were great under him ." In contrast to much of Ortved's account, in a 2004 interview with Animation Magazine, Mirkin stated that he "really wasn't at all intimidat (ed) to join (the show's writing) crew," because he "had worked with and written with" many of his fellow writers previously . </P> <P> Mirkin said that he "brought (the show) back to a more story - oriented" approach and increased the character and emotion focus, while "at the same time still keeping it surreal and weird". During his tenure, Mirkin moved the show's focus towards Homer, and developed some of the secondary characters, such as Apu . He also strongly opposed censorship and network interference . Mirkin's era and style of humor are popular amongst the show's fans, but the writing staff were divided on his style of humor, which saw the show move away from more "realistic" emotional and character based stories to "pure comedy" and "surreal" humor . The episode "Deep Space Homer" was controversial when the episode was in production . Some of the writers felt that having Homer go into space was too "large" of an idea and Groening felt that the idea was so big that it gave the writers "nowhere to go". </P>

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