Saturday Night Live (Season 23)

"Saturday Night Live" aired its twenty-third season during the 1997-1998 television season on NBC. Few changes took place during the preceding summer hiatus, save for the departure of Mark McKinney and the promotion of Colin Quinn from featured player to full cast member.

In the middle of the season, Norm Macdonald was removed from the "Weekend Update" desk while Colin Quinn took over as anchor. Macdonald still performed in sketches, but this was short-lived, as he was fired mid-season.

Six weeks after coming back to host, Chris Farley became the next "SNL" cast member to die. Much like his idol, John Belushi, Farley died of a drug overdose consisting of heroin and cocaine. Another SNL castmember death came weeks after the show's season finale, this time involving Phil Hartman (who, prior to his death, was on the NBC sitcom "NewsRadio" and often appeared on the FOX animated sitcom "The Simpsons" as either the voice of crooked lawyer Lionel Hutz or the voice of washed-up B-movie star Troy McClure), who was murdered at the hands of his wife, Brynn.

This season was also the only season to have an opening sequence that didn't show any shots of New York City.

The twenty-third season started September 27, 1997 and ended on May 9, 1998.

Cast

Repertory players

*Jim Breuer
*Will Ferrell
*Ana Gasteyer
*Darrell Hammond
*Chris Kattan
*Norm Macdonald (Final episode: March 14, 1998)
*Tim Meadows
*Tracy Morgan
*Cheri Oteri
*Colin Quinn
*Molly Shannon

Featured players

There were no featured cast members for Season 23.

Episode