Saturday Night Live season 11

The eleventh season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between November 9, 1985, and May 24, 1986.
The season marked Lorne Michaels' return to SNL as showrunner after a five-year hiatus. Michaels hired new cast members, but instead of his usual approach of recruiting from comedy clubs and improv groups, he cast established names such as Randy Quaid, Anthony Michael Hall, Robert Downey Jr., and Joan Cusack. Due to their relative inexperience in comedy, the new cast failed to connect with audiences.
The show also featured a frustrated writing crew, who did not know how to write sketches for such an eclectic cast. The season was plagued by harsh criticism, low ratings, and rumors of a possible cancellation. NBC president Brandon Tartikoff planned to cancel SNL after its season finale in May 1986; Michaels, however, pleaded with Tartikoff to let the show go on. Most of the cast was let go for the following season, with only Nora Dunn, Jon Lovitz and Dennis Miller along with featured player A. Whitney Brown returning, making it one of the more notable cast overhauls alongside season 6 and season 20.
The season was the subject of the fourth episode of the Peacock docuseries SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night entitled "Season 11: The Weird Year".

Cast

With Dick Ebersols cast and writers gone, Michaels hired Academy Award nominee Quaid, best known for his work in The Last Detail and National Lampoon's Vacation; as well as Cusack and Downey Jr. Part of the reasoning that Michaels chose younger performers was due to SNLs original audience, which comprised baby boomers, now nearing middle age, meaning that producers and NBC executives needed to appeal to a younger audience.
Chicago-based performance artist Danitra Vance was added along with stand-up comedians Miller and Damon Wayans, and improv comedians Dunn and Lovitz. Terry Sweeney, a comedic performer who had made a name for himself playing Nancy Reagan in Off-Broadway revues and who had been a writer on season 6 of SNL, was added to the cast, making him the first openly gay actor on network television. Don Novello returned as a featured player sporadically throughout the season, often reprising his popular Father Guido Sarducci character. A. Whitney Brown was also added to the cast midway through the season, performing his "The Big Picture" segment on Weekend Update, and Al Franken returned in the finale. Miller became the new anchor for Weekend Update. Despite the season's negative reception, Lovitz would gain popularity with characters like the Pathological Liar and Master Thespian.
Chris Elliott, then a performer and writer on Late Night with David Letterman, auditioned for the cast this season and was offered the job. He turned it down in order to remain at Letterman, though he would later join the SNL cast for one season in 1994. According to a 2020 interview with short-term cast member Dan Vitale, actress Anjelica Huston was nearly hired as a cast member this season. Huston, a friend of Lorne's, was begged to join the show as a cast member; instead she co-hosted the season finale with Billy Martin. Jim Carrey auditioned to be in the cast this season but was declined.

Controversy

When Chevy Chase hosted the show, there were reports of tension amongst the cast and crew. According to the book Live from New York: The Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, Chase pitched an idea for a sketch that featured openly gay cast member Sweeney as a person with AIDS who is weighed by a doctor to see how much weight he lost.

Cast roster

Repertory players

Featured players

bold denotes Weekend Update anchor
Wayans is credited as a featured player for all of the first twelve episodes, except for episode 10. He exits the show after episode 12 but returns as a guest to do standup for the season finale. The rest of the featured players are not credited in many episodes: Novello is only credited for five, Brown only appears in six, Vitale is only credited for two, and Franken is only credited for the season finale.

Writers

This season's writers were A. Whitney Brown, Tom Davis, Jim Downey, Al Franken, Jack Handey, Lanier Laney, Carol Leifer, George Meyer, Lorne Michaels, Don Novello, Michael O'Donoghue, R. D. Rosen, Herb Sargent, Suzy Schneider, Robert Smigel, John Swartzwelder, Terry Sweeney, Mark McKinney and Bruce McCulloch. The head writer was Downey. Downey and Sargent were the only writers from the previous season to return to the show. Franken and Davis were also this season's co-producers.

Special guests

Penn & Teller and Sam Kinison are featured in the opening credits as special guests for many episodes this season, performing a segment of their own acts each time they appear. Penn & Teller did six episodes, while Kinison did four. Each act appears as a special guest once more in the 1986–87 season before this type of variety show performance is discontinued and the focus of the show becomes the cast. Steven Wright, who had been a special guest to do standup on four episodes of the previous season, returns for one episode of this season.