Saturday Night Live season 11

The eleventh season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between November 9, 1985, and May 24, 1986.

The season marked Lorne Michaels' return to SNL as showrunner after a five-year hiatus. Michaels hired new cast members, but instead of his usual approach of recruiting from comedy clubs and improv groups, he cast established names such as Randy Quaid, Anthony Michael Hall, Robert Downey Jr., and Joan Cusack. Due to their relative inexperience in comedy, the new cast failed to connect with audiences.

The show also featured a frustrated writing crew (including future Simpsons writers Jon Vitti, George Meyer and John Swartzwelder), who did not know how to write sketches for such an eclectic cast. The season was plagued by harsh criticism, low ratings, and rumors of a possible cancellation. NBC president Brandon Tartikoff planned to cancel SNL after its season finale in May 1986; Michaels, however, pleaded with Tartikoff to let the show go on. Most of the cast was let go for the following season, with only Nora Dunn, Jon Lovitz and Dennis Miller along with featured player A. Whitney Brown returning, making it one of the more notable cast overhauls alongside season 6 and season 20.

The season was the subject of the fourth episode of the Peacock docuseries SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night entitled "Season 11: The Weird Year".