| Saturday Night Live | |
|---|---|
| Season 27 | |
 | |
| No. of episodes | 20 |
| Release | |
| Original network | NBC |
| Original release | September 29, 2001 – May 18, 2002 |
| Season chronology | |
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).[1] The scare caused most of the cast and crew, as well as that week's guest host Drew Barrymore, to evacuate the building.
- ^ "SNL Goes on Despite Anthrax Scare". ABC News. October 15, 2001. Retrieved April 23, 2024.