| Season Number: | 18 |
| Bgcolour: |
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| Image Alt: | The title card for the eighteenth season of Saturday Night Live. |
| Num Episodes: | 20 |
| Network: | NBC |
| Prev Season: | season 17 |
| Next Season: | season 19 |
| Episode List: | List of Saturday Night Live episodes |
The eighteenth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between September 26, 1992, and May 15, 1993.
Many changes happened before the start of the season. Long-term cast member Victoria Jackson left the show after six seasons.[1] Newer cast members Beth Cahill and Siobhan Fallon were both fired. Lorne Michaels did not hire any new cast members. Rob Schneider was upgraded to repertory status. Ellen Cleghorne, Tim Meadows, Adam Sandler and David Spade remained in the middle category. Melanie Hutsell was promoted to the middle category and Robert Smigel stayed a featured player.
Long-term cast member Dana Carvey would leave midseason; he originally planned to leave in the fall of 1992, but he ended up staying until the February 6, 1993 episode.[2] This would also be the final season for cast members Chris Rock and Robert Smigel.
After three years with the show, Rock quit at the end of the season, joining the much more diverse sketch comedy show In Living Color.[3] [4] Of his time on SNL, Rock had been frustrated with his lack of creative freedom and air time.[5] In the oral history Live from New York, Rock said, "The good thing about me being on In Living Color, I got things on that had nothing to do with race. On SNL, I either had to play a militant or a hip-hop guy. If you watch my stand-up, race is ten minutes of an hour-long show. I talk about relationships, whatever. And Living Color allowed me to talk about other shit. I could do sketches about, you know, funny stores I was in." Writer and featured player Smigel left to become the head writer for Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
This season was also home to one of SNLs most infamous moments: Sinéad O'Connor tore a photograph of Pope John Paul II at the end of her second singing performance.[6]
Repertory players
Featured players
With
bold denotes Weekend Update anchor
David Mandel (a future writer/producer of Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Veep) and Ian Maxtone-Graham (a future writer for The Simpsons) join the writing staff this season.[7]
Starting with the John Goodman-hosted episode, original-era writer Marilyn Suzanne Miller (who previously wrote for the first three seasons from 1975 to 1978; and again for the 1981-82 season) returns as a writer.
This season is more notable for being the final season for several longtime/veteran writers including Robert Smigel (who had been a writer for eight years since 1985), Jack Handey (who had been a writer for seven accumulative years since 1985, with the exception of season 12), Bonnie and Terry Turner, and Christine Zander (the later three of whom, had been writers for 6½ years since 1987).[8] (Although Smigel and Handey would return to the show in later seasons).
Then-head writer Jim Downey would blame the declining quality of the following seasons on all of the veteran writers departing.[9]
See main article: List of Saturday Night Live episodes.
Coneheads, a film based on the popular Coneheads sketches that appeared on the show in the 1970s, was released on July 23, 1993. Cast members Dan Aykroyd, Peter Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Chris Farley, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Jon Lovitz, Michael McKean, Tim Meadows, Garret Morris, Kevin Nealon, Laraine Newman, Adam Sandler, David Spade, and Julia Sweeney all appear in the film. The film did not do well at the box office and was largely panned by critics.[10]