Saturday Night Live (season 26)
The twenty-sixth season of "Saturday Night Live", an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between October 7, 2000, and May 19, 2001. This season featured satire of the 2000 U.S presidential election, including the Republican and Democratic primaries, the campaigns of Vice President Gore, Texas Governor George W. Bush, and Ralph Nader, the Florida election recount, and the Bush v. Gore case that came before the U.S. Supreme Court. Before the start of the season, Tim Meadows, Cheri Oteri and Colin Quinn left the show. With the three  of them gone, the show added two new cast members. "SNL" head writer Tina Fey and Second City comedian Jerry Minor joined the cast as featured players at the start of the season. Fey had been a writer on the show since 1997 and began as the show's head writer in 1999. Rachel Dratch and Maya Rudolph remained featured players. Minor was let go following this season. This would be Molly Shannon's final season on the show. Leaving mid-season, she surpassed Victoria Jackson as the show's longest-serving female cast member (Amy Poehler would surpass Shannon 's record seven years later). Chris Parnell was fired at the end of this season, but then rehired midway through the next season. Executive producer Lorne Michaels would later admit he made a mistake in firing Parnell from the cast and wanted him back. With Colin Quinn's anchor seat on "Weekend Update" empty, executive producer Lorne Michaels decided to go back to the format used in the 1970s with two anchors. Jimmy Fallon and head writer Tina Fey were picked to anchor the segment together. Because of Fey's head writer status, she would rarely make appearances in segments  other than "Weekend Update". This season also marked the first time since Season 14 that John Goodman didn't host at all. He had previously hosted at least one episode per season for a ten year stretch. Cast roster. Repertory players Featured players Writers. Jim Downey rejoins the writing staff this season. James Anderson, who went on to write on SNL for decades, joins the writing staff as a new writer. Episodes. <onlyinclude></onlyinclude> Section::::"The Ladies Man" film. Based on Leon Phelps' popular sketches, "The Ladies Man" film was released on October 13, 2000. The film's star Tim  Meadows left Saturday Night Live at the end of the previous season but returned to promote the film in the first episode of this season. Cast members Will Ferrell and Chris Parnell and former SNL cast member Mark McKinney co-starred in this film. The movie was panned by critics and flopped at the box office.