Saturday Night Live season 22


The twenty-second season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between September 28, 1996, and May 17, 1997.
This season is notable for the host selection. Seven of the 20 hosts were former cast members. They included Dana Carvey, Robert Downey Jr., Phil Hartman, Chris Rock, Martin Short, Chase and Mike Myers. This would mark Chase's final time hosting before getting banned.

Cast

Many changes happened before the start of the season. Nancy Walls was let go after one season, and longtime cast member David Spade, who had been with the cast for six seasons since 1990, left the show on his own terms. David Keochner was initially going to return but at the request of NBC West Coast president Don Ohlmeyer was let go after one season, despite pleas from creator Lorne Michaels to keep him.
Comedian and singer Ana Gasteyer of The Groundlings and stand-up comedian Tracy Morgan were hired to replace Koechner and Walls, being promoted to repertory status when hired.
Chris Kattan was promoted to repertory status, while Colin Quinn and Fred Wolf remained as featured players.
This was the final season for Mark McKinney, who had been on the show for three seasons since 1995. Wolf also left his position as featured player and co-head writer after the season's first three episodes.

Cast roster

Repertory players
Featured players
bold denotes Weekend Update anchor
Quinn was credited for 10 of the season's 20 episodes and Wolf was only credited for the third episode of the season and left afterwards. This is also the final season in which featured players are only credited in certain episodes. Starting with season 24, featured players are credited for every single episode of the season, whether they appear or not.

Writers

Adam McKay, who had joined the writing staff at the start of the previous season, became head writer alongside Tim Herlihy. While Steve Higgins and Fred Wolf remained on the writing staff. Robert Carlock and Stephen Colbert joined the writing staff for this season.
Additionally, former writer Robert Smigel returned to the writing staff to produce the "TV Funhouse" cartoons.
Wolf left the show after the Bill Pulman-hosted episode after about three calendar years.
This was Norm Hiscock's final season as a writer. Hiscock departed from the series after three seasons. Hiscock was one of the few writers who survived the writer/cast overhaul after season 20 in 1995.

Episodes