| Season Number: | 10 |
| Bgcolour: |
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| Image Alt: | The title card for the tenth season of Saturday Night Live. |
| Num Episodes: | 17 |
| Network: | NBC |
| Prev Season: | season 9 |
| Next Season: | season 11 |
| Episode List: | List of Saturday Night Live episodes |
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. This was the only season to feature renowned comedians Billy Crystal, Martin Short, and Christopher Guest as cast members, and became known as the "All-Star" cast season.[1] Only 17 episodes were produced due to a writers' strike and budget constraints.[2] This was the final season of the Ebersol-run era.
This season also featured a new opening sequence produced by Charlex (who also created The Cars' "You Might Think" video earlier in 1984), depicting the SNL cast as giants in and around New York City landmarks.[3]
During the previous season, Eddie Murphy left the show midseason. Because of Murphy's departure, Joe Piscopo also left the show because he did not want to do it without Murphy. Dick Ebersol fired Robin Duke, Brad Hall and Tim Kazurinsky.
Ebersol and head writer Bob Tischler then wanted to "blow up" the show by adding seasoned comedians instead of newcomers.[4] [5] He hired Billy Crystal (who hosted twice in season 9 and was originally set to appear in SNL's first episode),[6] Christopher Guest (a frequent contributor to The National Lampoon Radio Hour in the early 1970s), Rich Hall (best known for his work on "Not Necessarily the News" and the early 1980s ABC sketch show "Fridays"), Harry Shearer (who was a cast member on SNL in season 5), Martin Short (from "SCTV") and New Zealander Pamela Stephenson (from "Not The Nine O'Clock News"). Stephenson beat out Geena Davis and Andrea Martin for the spot. Christopher Guest became the anchor of Saturday Night News.
In the middle of the season, Harry Shearer left the show due to "creative differences".[7] 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).
The remaining cast members left the show at the end of the season. Ebersol had been wanting to completely revamp the show to include mostly prerecorded segments.[8] Short, Guest, and Hall ultimately grew 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". 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.
Repertory players
bold denotes Weekend Update anchor
Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, Rich Hall, Rob Riley, and Martin Short joined the writing staff. Jim Downey, Herb Sargent, 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, 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.
Larry David spent one season on the writing staff.[9] He described this period as a miserable experience due to his conflicts with Dick Ebersol and being able to get only one sketch on the air, which aired in the final moments of Episode 7. He would later take some of his unused ideas and work them into his show Seinfeld. David would return to host SNL in 2017[10] and to portray Bernie Sanders.[11]
See main article: List of Saturday Night Live episodes.