| Season Number: | 25 |
| Bgcolour: |
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| Image Alt: | The title card for the twenty-fifth season of Saturday Night Live. |
| Num Episodes: | 20 |
| Network: | NBC |
| Prev Season: | season 24 |
| Next Season: | season 26 |
| Episode List: | List of Saturday Night Live episodes |
The twenty-fifth season of Saturday Night Live (also branded Saturday Night Live 25 and SNL25), an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between October 2, 1999 and May 20, 2000.
Jimmy Fallon,[1] Horatio Sanz, and Chris Parnell were promoted to repertory status. Rachel Dratch[2] and Maya Rudolph[3] joined the cast as featured players.
In July of 1999, when executive producer Lorne Michaels held auditions for the season, NBC introduced a new contract for first-year cast members, replacing the five- or six-year deals they had used in the past. The terms were established by NBC executives Scott Sassa and Garth Ancier. According to Peter Bogdanovich, the new contract came with the following terms:
The starting salary remained $5,000 per episode.
This would be the final season for longtime cast members Tim Meadows,[4] Cheri Oteri,[5] and Colin Quinn[6] all left the show. Meadows had been on the show for 10 seasons since 1991 (a record at the time); while Oteri and Quinn had both been on for five seasons since 1995.
Repertory players
Featured players
bold denotes Weekend Update anchor
Starting this season, Tina Fey is credited as the writing supervisor,[7] which means that she was promoted to the head writer position, making her the first woman in this role.[8]
However, previous head writer Adam McKay (who by this point, had been a writer since 1995) returned to the writing staff this season.[9]
The Jennifer Aniston episode would mark the final episode for longtime writer/producer Tim Herlihy (a writer for the show since 1994), as he left the show after 5½ years.[10]
See main article: Superstar (1999 film). A Superstar film, based on the Mary Katherine Gallagher sketches, was released on October 8, 1999. Cast members Will Ferrell, Mark McKinney and Molly Shannon appear in the film. The film did modestly well at the box office but was panned by critics.