Country of origin United States Original network NBC | No. of episodes 17 | |
Original release October 6, 1984 (1984-10-06) – April 13, 1985 (1985-04-13) | ||
The tenth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between October 6, 1984, and April 13, 1985. Only 17 episodes were produced due to a writer's strike and budget constraints.
Contents
Cast changes
During the previous season Eddie Murphy left the show mid season. Because of Murphy's departure Joe Piscopo also left the show because he did not want to do it without Murphy. Dick Ebersol then fired Robin Duke, Brad Hall and Tim Kazurinsky. Ebersol then wanted to blow up the show by adding seasoned comedians instead of newcomers. He hired Billy Crystal (who hosted twice in season nine and was originally set to appear in SNL's first episode), Harry Shearer (who was a cast member on SNL in its fifth season), New Zealander Pamela Stephenson (from "Not The Nine O'Clock News"), Rich Hall (best known for his work on "Not Necessarily the News" and "Fridays"), Martin Short (from "SCTV"), and Christopher Guest (a frequent contributor to The National Lampoon Radio Hour in the early 1970s). Guest would become the anchor of Saturday Night News.
In the middle of the season, Harry Shearer left the show due to "creative differences". Shearer told the AP, "I was creative, and they were different." Despite his departure, his image is still shown in the opening credits (spray-painting an elevated train as it goes down the track).
Changes to format
This season also featured a new opening sequence, depicting the SNL cast as giants in and around New York City landmarks. At the end of the season, Ebersol requested to completely revamp the show to include mostly prerecorded segments. Short, Guest, and Hall had tired of the show's demanding production schedule and showed little interest in returning for another season, leaving Crystal the only "A-cast" member available for Season 11. Like Lorne Michaels at the end of Season 5, Ebersol made taking the show off the air for several months to re-cast and rebuild a condition of his return. Another idea was to institute a permanent rotation of hosts (Billy Crystal, David Letterman and Joe Piscopo) for "a hip The Ed Sullivan Show". After briefly canceling the show, NBC decided to continue production only if they could get Michaels to produce again. Ebersol, along with his writing staff and most of the cast, left the show after this season. Those who wished to stay, such as Crystal, were not rehired for the following season.
Cast
bold denotes Weekend Update anchor
Writers
Billy Crystal, Larry David, Christopher Guest, Rich Hall, Rob Riley, and Martin Short joined the writing staff. Jim Downey and Harry Shearer rejoined the staff after a four-year hiatus. Robin Duke, Adam Green, Tim Kazurinsky, Michael McCartney, Eddie Murphy, Pamela Norris, and Joe Piscopo left the staff.
This season's writers were Jim Belushi, Andy Breckman, Billy Crystal, Larry David, Jim Downey, Christopher Guest, Rich Hall, Nate Herman, Kevin Kelton, Andy Kurtzman, Margaret Oberman, Rob Riley, Herb Sargent, Martin Short, Harry Shearer, Andrew Smith, Bob Tischler and Eliot Wald. The head writer was Bob Tischler.