Starring: Jane Curtin Garrett Morris Bill Murray Laraine Newman Gilda Radner Harry Shearer

Featuring: Peter Aykroyd (first: 11/17/79) Tom Davis Jim Downey Brian Doyle-Murray (first: 12/15/79) Al Franken Don Novello Tom Schiller (first: 12/15/79) Paul Shaffer Alan Zweibel (first: 12/15/79)

Episodes

10/13/79: Steve Martin / Blondie 10/20/79: Eric Idle / Bob Dylan 11/03/79: Bill Russell / Chicago 11/10/79: Buck Henry / Tom Petty 11/17/79: Bea Arthur / The Roches 12/08/79: Howard Hesseman / Randy Newman 12/15/79: Martin Sheen / David Bowie 12/22/79: Ted Knight / Desmond Child & Rouge 01/26/80: Teri Garr / The B-52's 02/09/80: Chevy Chase / Marianne Faithfull 02/16/80: Elliott Gould / Gary Numan 02/23/80: Kirk Douglas / Sam & Dave 03/08/80: Rodney Dangerfield / The J. Geils Band 03/15/80: (none) / James Taylor & Paul Simon, David Sanborn 04/05/80: Richard Benjamin & Paula Prentiss / Grateful Dead 04/12/80: Burt Reynolds / Anne Murray 04/19/80: Strother Martin / The Specials 05/10/80: Bob Newhart / Amazing Rhythm Aces, Bruce Cockburn 05/17/80: Steve Martin / 3-D, Paul & Linda McCartney 05/24/80: Buck Henry / Andrew Gold, Andrae Crouch & Voices of Unity

Summary

"Saturday Night Live" is only as big as its stars, and the 1979 season made that abundantly clear. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi left the show at the end of the fourth season to pursue movie stardom, leaving a noticeable void. Bill Murray became the show's new frontrunner, and was placed in nearly every sketch. Jane, Garrett, Laraine and Gilda still provide laughs, as do premiere featured performances by comic Harry Shearer and most of the show's writers, but it's easy to see that the old magic is no longer there. It was so evident to everyone involved with the show, that they all decided to leave at the end of the season, rounding out five years of involvement with the "Saturday Night Live" project. However, NBC was not letting go of its highest-rated program that easily, and was determined to salvage it no longer how many years it would take.