Saturday Night Live season 27

The twenty-seventh season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between September 29, 2001 and May 18, 2002.

Eighteen days before the season started, the September 11 terrorist attacks took place in New York. The season premiere (hosted by Reese Witherspoon) went on as scheduled, with a special cold open featuring Rudy Giuliani, the Mayor of New York City at the time, along with firefighters from the FDNY and police officers from the NYPD, declaring that despite the terrorist attack, New York City will run as normal and Saturday Night Live will go on as planned (with Lorne Michaels asking Giuliani "Can we be funny?" and Giuliani replying "Why start now?").

Three weeks into the season the show faced another scare when anthrax was found in the GE Building (from where the show is broadcast). The scare caused most of the cast and crew, as well as that week's guest host Drew Barrymore, to evacuate the building.

Cast

Before the start of the season, longtime cast member Molly Shannon, who had been on the show for six years since 1995, departed midway through the previous season on her own terms, and featured player Jerry Minor and repertory cast member Chris Parnell were both let go from the show after the finale. However, Parnell was hired back to the show midseason in the episode hosted by Jonny Moseley, becoming the second cast member to be hired back to the show after being fired, the first person being Jim Belushi in 1983.