Saturday Night Live

• Madonna (the host of the previous season's premiere episode) appears in the cold opening to read a statement from NBC about the 1985-1986 season: "It was all a dream—a horrible, horrible dream" in a Dallas-esque spoof.
• Phil Hartman, Dana Carvey, Kevin Nealon, Victoria Jackson and Jan Hooks' first episode as cast members.
• Buster Poindexter and Christopher Durang appear as special guests.
• Buster Poindexter is the unnofficial "musical guest".

• Special guests: Sam Kinison, Buster Poindexter, and Spike Lee as his Mars Blackmon character from She's Gotta Have It
• During Sam Kinison's guest performance, the part where he encourages the legalization of marijuana has been muted out.

• This episode marks the first time that a first-run SNL episode did not air live on the East Coast. The episode was originally supposed to air live on October 25, but was pre-empted by the 1986 World Series until 1:00 am. Rather than air the episode live at that time, it was videotaped, and aired the week after the World Series.

• This episode, much like the Richard Pryor episode from 1975 and later the Andrew "Dice" Clay episode from 1990, was put on a seven-second delay.

• Chevy Chase acknowledged his recent stint in the Betty Ford Center in the monologue and cold opening (a skit where klutzy people hold a support group meeting called Stumblebums Anonymous).

• This show features the sketch where William Shatner, sick of Star Trek fans asking him inane questions, tells them to "Get a life!"
• Comedian Kevin Meaney makes a special guest appearance that was later revealed to be an audition to join the cast.

Walter Payton†

• With this episode, Paul Shaffer becomes the first (and only) member of the Saturday Night Live Band to come back and host, and the only regular from Late Night with David Letterman (later renamed The Late Show with David Letterman, following Letterman's move to CBS) to host SNL.

• Special guest appearance by Buster Poindexter with the SNL Band.
• Paulina Porizkova appears on the show.

• Credited guest star: Danny DeVito.

• Bertinelli's then-husband, Eddie Van Halen, appeared in a sketch and played with the SNL Band.

• On the original version of this episode, there is a Donahue sketch where one of the guests (played by Nora Dunn) reveals that she had a bad relationship with Jean Doumanian-era/Dick Ebersol-era castmember Joe Piscopo. All reruns of this sketch are replaced^{[citation needed]} with a dress rehearsal version where Nora reveals that she had a bad relationship with Gallagher.
• With this episode Bill Murray is the only person to host shows produced by all three executive producers (Doumanian, Ebersol and Michaels).

• The episode features a short film by Ben Stiller, who would join the cast in 1989.