Saturday Night Live season 9

The ninth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between October 8, 1983, and May 12, 1984.

Hosts
Future cast member Billy Crystal hosted twice this season: once with musical guest Al Jarreau and again on the season finale with Ed Koch, Edwin Newman, Betty Thomas and former cast member Don Novello, with the Cars as musical guest.

Cast
Jim Belushi was added to the cast, making his debut on the third episode of the season.

Midway through the season in February 1984, Eddie Murphy left the show. To keep viewers watching, SNL aired segments Murphy had pre-taped in September of 1983.

Brad Hall, who had been anchoring Weekend Update (then called Saturday Night News) since the previous season, left the position in January of 1984. For the rest of the season and into the next, both cast members and SNL guest-hosts would take turns at the anchor chair. Hall himself left SNL at the end of the season.

Cast roster
Repertory players bold denotes Weekend Update anchor
 * Jim Belushi (first episode: October 22, 1983)
 * Robin Duke
 * Mary Gross
 * Brad Hall
 * Tim Kazurinsky
 * Gary Kroeger
 * Julia Louis-Dreyfus
 * Eddie Murphy (final episode: February 25, 1984)
 * Joe Piscopo

Writers
This season's writers were Jim Belushi, Andy Breckman, Robin Duke, Adam Green, Mary Gross, Nate Herman, Tim Kazurinsky, Kevin Kelton, Andy Kurtzman, Michael McCarthy, Eddie Murphy, Pamela Norris, Margaret Oberman, Joe Piscopo, Andrew Smith, Bob Tischler, Eliot Wald and Herb Sargent. The head writers were Bob Tischler and Andrew Smith.