Saturday Night Live (season 2)

Saturday Night Live (season 2)

Saturday Night Live aired its second season during the 1976–1977 television season on NBC. The second season started on September 18, 1976, and ended on May 21, 1977.

This season saw the first of many SNL cast changes. Chevy Chase, who was pursuing a movie career in California, left the show after the October 30th episode hosted by Buck Henry with musical guest, The Band. Jane Curtin became the first female cast member to become a Weekend Update anchor following Chase's departure.

On the January 15, 1977 episode hosted by Ralph Nader, Bill Murray joined the cast to fill the void left by Chase's departure. Even though Murray would later become a fan favorite, his early appearances on SNL had many fans accusing Murray of being a poor replacement for Chevy Chase.

This season also saw another change in the show: its name. Following the cancellation of ABC's Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell, NBC changed the name of the show from NBC's Saturday Night to its current title, Saturday Night Live in the episode hosted by Jack Burns in 1977.

This season also marks the first time that Steve Martin hosted the show. (Martin would later host a record 15 times and become so synonymous with Saturday Night Live that people often mistake him for having been one of the regular cast members.) It also marks the first time that a sports star (football player Fran Tarkenton) hosted.

It was the last time that the Muppet sketches (which were unpopular with both fans and writers) would appear on the show. In a 1977 interview with Playboy, O'Donoghue who was head writer/performer, referred to the Muppets as "those fucking Muppets, those little hairy facecloths" and were "made from the refuse after they cleaned up after Woodstock". He also refused to write for them, saying "I don’t write for felt". O'Donoghue also had a lynched Big Bird hanging in the writer's office.

Alan Zweibel talked about a meeting with Jim Henson. "So I went over to Jim Henson’s townhouse on like Sixty-eighth Street and I remember we’re reading the sketch, Jim Henson’s reading the pages, and he gets to a line and he says, ‘Oh, Skred wouldn’t say this.’ I look and on a table over there is this cloth thing that is folded over like laundry, and it’s Skred. ‘Oh, but he wouldn’t say this.’ Oh, sorry." According to Zweibel, the lynched Big Bird spoke for everyone. "That’s how we all felt about the Muppets."

Jerry Juhl stated that "We went through just about every writer on the show." Belushi was also not a fan of the Muppets, saying he "always hated the puppets". In his first interview for SNL, he told Michaels, "My television has spit on it."

Read more about Saturday Night Live (season 2):  Cast, Writers, Specials, Episodes, DVD Release

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