Saturday Night Live season 19
Saturday Night Live Season 19 aired on NBC from September 25, 1993, to May 14, 1994, and had 20 episodes. The season brought big cast changes: Dana Carvey had left the show the previous season, and Chris Rock and Robert Smigel also left. Ellen Cleghorne, Melanie Hutsell, Tim Meadows, Adam Sandler, and David Spade were promoted to repertory status. Stand-up comedians Norm Macdonald, Jay Mohr, and Sarah Silverman were hired as writers and joined the show as featured players partway through the season. Michael McKean joined midseason as a repertory cast member and became the oldest person to join the cast up to that point.
This would be the final season for longtime cast members Phil Hartman, Rob Schneider, Julia Sweeney, and Melanie Hutsell. It was also the only season for Sarah Silverman. Before Hartman’s final show, the rest of the cast gave him a bronzed stick of glue as a nod to him being “The Glue” of SNL. This season marked the return to the traditional repertory and featured cast lists, and it was the last season to show StereoSurround captioning in the opening montage.
In terms of credits, Norm Macdonald and Jay Mohr were listed in the open montage for 14 of the 20 episodes, Sarah Silverman for 10 episodes, and Al Franken for 3 episodes. Several veteran writers left the show, and head writer Jim Downey noted that these changes contributed to a dip in quality and audience reception. New writers included Dave Attell, Norm Macdonald, Jay Mohr, Sarah Silverman (as a featured player), Lewis Morton, Steve Lookner, and Tony DeSena. This would be the only season for Attell, Silverman, and DeSena. Fred Wolf joined the writing staff for the John Malkovich-hosted episode, and Tim Herlihy was added around the Nancy Kerrigan-hosted episode. It was also the final season for longtime writer Tom Davis.
Two films related to SNL came out during this period. Wayne’s World 2 (released December 10, 1993) continued the Wayne’s World story with Dana Carvey, Chris Farley, Tim Meadows, Mike Myers, and Harry Shearer, with Bob Odenkirk and Robert Smigel in cameos. The sequel earned less at the box office than the original, though critics gave it generally positive reviews (Roger Ebert praised its characters). It's Pat, based on the popular sketches, was released on August 26, 1994, featuring Tim Meadows, Charles Rocket, and Julia Sweeney, but it was a box-office bomb and received very negative reviews, holding a rare 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 10:09 (CET).