Saturday Night Live aired its twelfth season during the 1986-1987 television season on NBC. The 12th season started on October 11, 1986, the 11th anniversary of the show's first episode, and ended on May 23, 1987.
Despite plans to have Saturday Night Live canceled due to the ratings of its previous season, producer Lorne Michaels convinced Brandon Tartikoff to give the show another chance, provided that a better cast be found for the next season. As a result, many of season 11's cast members were fired, except for Nora Dunn, Jon Lovitz, featured player A. Whitney Brown, and Weekend Update anchor Dennis Miller. Al Franken was rehired as a writer. The rest were relative unknowns, led by Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, and Kevin Nealon. Hooks had auditioned to be in the season 10 and 11 casts, but had been turned down. Hartman helped write sketches in season 11's Thanksgiving episode hosted by Pee-wee Herman, and appeared in a sketch as a Pilgrim.
The first show of the 1986-1987 season opened with Madonna, host of the previous season opener, reading a "statement" from NBC about season 11's mediocre writing and bad cast choices. According to the "statement", the entire 1985-1986 season was "...all a dream. A horrible, horrible dream."
Release Date
Oct 11, 1986
Episodes
20 episodes
CAST
Dana Carvey
Self - Various Characters
Nora Dunn
Self - Various Characters
Dennis Miller
Self - Various Characters
Jon Lovitz
Self - Various Characters
EPISODES
1
Sigourney Weaver/Buster Poindexter
Oct 11, 1986
2
Malcolm-Jamal Warner/Run DMC
Oct 18, 1986
3
Rosanna Arquette/Ric Ocasek
Nov 8, 1986
4
Sam Kinison/Lou Reed
Nov 15, 1986
5
Robin Williams/Paul Simon
Nov 22, 1986
6
Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, & Martin Short/Randy Newman
Dec 6, 1986
7
Steve Guttenberg/The Pretenders
Dec 13, 1986
8
William Shatner/Lone Justice
Dec 20, 1986
9
Walter Payton, Joe Montana/Debbie Harry
Jan 24, 1987
10
Paul Shaffer/Bruce Hornsby & the Range
Jan 31, 1987
11
Bronson Pinchot/Paul Young
Feb 14, 1987
12
Willie Nelson
Feb 21, 1987
13
Valerie Bertinelli/The Robert Cray Band
Feb 28, 1987
14
Bill Murray/Percy Sledge
Mar 21, 1987
15
Charlton Heston/Wynton Marsalis
Mar 28, 1987
16
John Lithgow/Anita Baker
Apr 11, 1987
17
John Larroquette/Timbuk 3
Apr 18, 1987
18
Mark Harmon/Suzanne Vega
May 9, 1987
19
Garry Shandling/Los Lobos
May 16, 1987
20
Dennis Hopper/Roy Orbison
May 23, 1987
Details
Language
English
Country
Production
Network
Metadata
TMDB ID
59599