Saturday Night Live (season 25)


The twenty-fifth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between October 2, 1999 and May 20, 2000.

Cast

The entire cast from last season returned for another year. Jimmy Fallon, Chris Parnell and Horatio Sanz were all promoted to repertory status, with the cast otherwise unchanged at the start of the season. As the season progressed, the show added two new cast members. Rachel Dratch, recruited from Chicago's The Second City, where she was head writer Tina Fey's comedy partner, joined the show in the episode hosted by Norm Macdonald. Towards the end of the season, Maya Rudolph of The Groundlings joined the show, starting with the episode hosted by John Goodman.
This would be the final season for cast members Tim Meadows, Cheri Oteri and Colin Quinn. Meadows's tenure at Saturday Night Live lasted 10 seasons, having joined the cast in 1991. He decided to leave the show after the season for other acting opportunities.

Cast roster

Repertory players
Featured players
bold denotes Weekend Update anchor

Contract for new cast members

In July 1999, when executive producer Lorne Michaels held auditions for the season, NBC introduced a new contract for first-year cast members, replacing the five- or six-year deals they had used in the past. The terms were established by NBC executives Scott Sassa and Garth Ancier. According to Peter Bogdanovich, the new contract came with the following terms:
The starting salary remained $5,000 per episode.

Writers

Starting this season Tina Fey is credited as the writing supervisor.

Episodes

Specials

''Superstar'' film

A Superstar film, based on the Mary Katherine Gallagher sketches, was released on October 8, 1999. Cast members Will Ferrell, Mark McKinney and Molly Shannon appear in the film. The film did modestly well at the box office but was panned by critics.