Saturday Night Live season 8

The eighth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between September 25, 1982, and May 14, 1983.

Format changes
For the season, Dick Ebersol brought back the show's opening phrase "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" and the monologues by the hosts. Ebersol also changed Weekend Update's name for the second time, to Saturday Night News. Since Brian Doyle-Murray and Christine Ebersole had both been dropped, a new anchor was needed for the segment. Brad Hall got the gig and became the new anchor.

Notable moments
Notable moments of this season included Drew Barrymore hosting the show—the youngest ever person to host. During the episode, the audience at home was given the chance to vote on whether or not Andy Kaufman should be banned from the show. The vote was conducted by a 1-900 number. At the end of the show, Kaufman was banned from ever performing on SNL again.

Another notable moment was when Eddie Murphy hosted the show. Murphy substituted for his 48 Hours co-star Nick Nolte. Murphy became the only person to have hosted the show while still a cast member. He announced "Live from New York, it's the Eddie Murphy Show!"

Cast
Before the start of the season, Brian Doyle-Murray, Christine Ebersole and Tony Rosato were dropped from the cast. To fill the void, Dick Ebersol went to The Second City to look for performers; however, Second City was tired of losing their talent to network shows and instead directed him to The Practical Theatre Company, where Ebersol discovered Brad Hall, Gary Kroeger and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The three were hired to the SNL cast on the spot.

Cast roster
Repertory players


 * Robin Duke
 * Mary Gross
 * Brad Hall
 * Tim Kazurinsky


 * Gary Kroeger
 * Julia Louis-Dreyfus
 * Eddie Murphy
 * Joe Piscopo

bold denotes Weekend Update anchor

Writers
Before the season, Paul Barrosse was added as a writer.

This season's writers were Paul Barrosse, Barry W. Blaustein, Robin Duke, Ellen L. Fogle, Nate Herman, Tim Kazurinsky, Andy Kurtzman, Eddie Murphy, Pamela Norris, Margaret Oberman, Joe Piscopo, David Sheffield, Andrew Smith, Bob Tischler, Tracy Tormé and Eliot Wald. The head writers were Bob Tischler and Andrew Smith.