| Season Number: | 3 |
| Bgcolour: |
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| Image Alt: | The title card for the third season of Saturday Night Live. |
| Num Episodes: | 20 |
| Network: | NBC |
| Prev Season: | season 2 |
| Next Season: | season 4 |
| Episode List: | List of Saturday Night Live episodes |
The third season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between September 24, 1977, and May 20, 1978.
The DVD set of the entire season was released on May 13, 2008.
Prior to the start of the season, writers Tom Davis and Al Franken were added as featured cast members. Meanwhile Dan Aykroyd joined Jane Curtin as an anchor for Weekend Update becoming the first Weekend Update anchor team. This would be the final season that the cast was called "The Not Ready for Primetime Players".
The Not Ready for Prime Time Players
Featured players
bold denotes Weekend Update anchor
In the "Anyone Can Host" episode—for which a contest found a non-celebrity to host the show—the musical guest, Elvis Costello, halted his band, the Attractions, seven seconds into the song "Less Than Zero", launching into "Radio Radio", an as-yet unreleased song critical of mainstream broadcasting. (The Sex Pistols were originally booked to appear on the show, but were denied visas to enter America.) The change angered Lorne Michaels, and Costello would not be invited back to the show until 1989.[1]
Chevy Chase hosted during the season, making him the first cast member to host after leaving the show. Right before the curtain call, a heated argument broke out backstage between Chase and relatively new cast member Bill Murray. After several insults were exchanged (including Chase mocking Murray's acne-scarred skin and Murray calling Chase a "medium talent"), the two men struck each other. Although by most accounts the altercation had been at least partially instigated by John Belushi, he was the one (along with Dan Aykroyd) who separated Murray and Chase moments before the entire cast regrouped in front of the live cameras. Before being banned from hosting altogether in 1997, Chase hosted the show several times throughout its history, though he was extremely unpopular with the cast and crew and regularly disagreed with them.[2]
Talent coordinator/extra Neil Levy (who is the cousin of producer Lorne Michaels) was officially added to the writing staff.[3] This was his only season as a writer, but stayed with the staff for the next several seasons.
Brian Doyle-Murray (Bill's brother) and Don Novello (best known for his character Father Guido Sarducci) joined the writing staff midway through the season on January 21, 1978.[4]
This season's writers were Dan Aykroyd, Anne Beatts, Tom Davis, Jim Downey, Brian Doyle-Murray, Al Franken, Neil Levy, Lorne Michaels, Don Novello, Herb Sargent, Tom Schiller, Rosie Shuster, Marilyn Suzanne Miller and Alan Zweibel. The head writer was Michael O'Donoghue (who would leave after this season, after three years as head writer, but would return two times to the writing staff in the 1980s).
See main article: List of Saturday Night Live episodes.
Season 3 remains one of the shows best seasons and in 2024, ScreenRant ranked season 3 as the greatest season in the history of Saturday Night Live.
Season 3 was released on DVD May 13, 2008.[5]