The fifth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between October 13, 1979, and May 24, 1980.
Cast
Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi left the show at the end of season 4, leaving a void in the cast that most fans thought would be the beginning of the end of the late-night sketch comedy show. Belushi left to make movies while Aykroyd had intended to stay for the fifth season, only to change his mind to concentrate on filming The Blues Brothers only weeks leading up to the season premiere. Aykroyd sudden departure caused a rift between him and Lorne Michaels which wouldn't be healed for many years.
To keep the show going, Michaels upgraded many of the show's writers to featured cast member status: Peter Aykroyd (Dan's brother), Jim Downey, Brian Doyle-Murray (Bill's brother), Don Novello (also credited as Father Guido Sarducci), Tom Schiller and Alan Zweibel. Band leader Paul Shaffer also joined the cast, becoming the first person from the SNL band to become a cast member. Harry Shearer joined the show as a featured cast member and was promoted to repertory status during the season.
This season was the first to have two members of the same family as cast members (Bill Murray and Brian Doyle-Murray).
As previously mentioned, Michaels upgraded many of the show's writers to cast member status, including Aykroyd, Downey, Doyle-Murray, Novello, Schiller and Zweibel.
This season's writers were Peter Aykroyd, Anne Beatts, Tom Davis, Jim Downey, Brian Doyle-Murray, Al Franken, Tom Gammill, Lorne Michaels, Matt Neuman, Don Novello, Sarah Paley, Max Pross, Herb Sargent, Tom Schiller, Harry Shearer, Rosie Shuster and Alan Zweibel. The head writer was Herb Sargent. Doyle-Murray would be the only one to return as a writer, in the following season. (Although Downey, Franken, Davis, Michaels, Novello, Sargent, Schiller, Shearer, and Shuster would return in later seasons)
This episode re-aired on February 8, 2020 as a tribute to Kirk Douglas who had died 3 days prior.
It was announced during the previous episode’s goodnights that the original musical guest for this episode was James Brown, but he cancelled for reasons unknown.
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan from New York and Ralph Nader appear on the show as themselves. Moynihan introduces a sketch about leprechauns and appears in a sketch about sophisticated winos that ends up being an ad for wines from New York State. Nader appears in a segment on "Weekend Update".
Michael Palin appears in a sketch called "Talk or Die" that includes Jane Curtin playing Rula Lenska.
During a sketch about a medieval band rehearsing for a performance (which features John Belushi towards the end), Paul Shaffer said the word "fuck" live on the air.[2]
In a Weekend Update commentary, "A Limo For A Lame-O", Al Franken laments that he does not have limo service like NBC president Fred Silverman, despite the network's poor ratings and shaky finances under Silverman's leadership. This ruined Franken's slim chance of succeeding Lorne Michaels as the show's executive producer[3]
