The sixth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between November 15, 1980, and April 11, 1981.

Doumanian's first—and only—season in charge was plagued by difficulties, from a reduced budget to new cast members who were compared unfavorably to the Not Ready for Prime Time Players.

[1] After cast member Charles Rocket swore on air in the February 21, 1981 episode, NBC president of entertainment Brandon Tartikoff fired Doumanian and hired Dick Ebersol to improve the show.

The show went on a brief hiatus as Ebersol retooled the cast, firing most of Doumanian's hires with the exception of Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo, Denny Dillon, and Gail Matthius.

Ebersol's first produced episode aired on April 11, 1981, but the 1981 Writers Guild of America strike began that night, forcing the season to an early end.

In doing so, she passed on then-unknown performers as Jim Carrey, Mercedes Ruehl, Sandra Bernhard, John Goodman and Paul Reubens.

As SNL historians Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad phrase it, Jean still needed an ethnic, and a special series of auditions was set up to find one.

For two days in mid-September some thirty black actors and comedians filed through the writers' wing on the 17th floor [of Rockefeller Center] to read for Jean and her people.

But talent coordinator Neil Levy had another black performer he wanted her to see, a kid from Roosevelt, Long Island, named Eddie Murphy.

Before the next season, Ebersol also fired Denny Dillon and Gail Matthius, leaving Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo the only remaining cast members from Jean Doumanian's tenure.

Contributing to the sense that season six was doomed, in the first sketch the cast shared a bed with Gould and introduced themselves – Charles Rocket proclaimed himself to be a cross between Chevy Chase and Bill Murray, and Gilbert Gottfried referred to himself as a cross between John Belushi "and that guy from last year who did Rod Serling, and no one can remember his name"[12] (referring to Harry Shearer).

[11] At the end of the show, Gould stood on stage and quickly introduced himself to the cast one more time by first name and declared "We're gonna be around forever, so we might as well..." In September 1980, talent coordinator Neil Levy received a telephone call from 19-year-old Eddie Murphy, who had begged the producer to "give him a shot" on the show, but was initially rejected since "the black cast member had already been chosen.

Onstage for the goodnights, Dallas star and that week's host Charlene Tilton asked Rocket (still in character and sitting in a wheelchair) his thoughts on being shot.

Director Dave Wilson, fearing that the show was finished for good, simply threw his script papers in the air and said "Well, that's the end of live television" and walked out of the room.

[17] Murray, a friend of Doumanian, agreed to host as a favor and doing so convinced NBC's head of programming Brandon Tartikoff to keep the show on for another week.

[24] In his first two weeks, Ebersol fired Gottfried, Risley, and Rocket,[25] replacing them with Robin Duke,[26] Tim Kazurinsky,[27] and Tony Rosato.

[28] Ebersol's first show aired April 11, with appearances by Chevy Chase on Weekend Update, and Al Franken asking viewers to "put SNL to sleep".

bold denotes Weekend Update anchor Eddie Murphy is credited for five episodes as a featured player before becoming part of the main cast.

This season's writers included Larry Arnstein, Barry W. Blaustein, Billy Brown, Ferris Butler, John DeBellis, Jean Doumanian, Nancy Dowd, Brian Doyle-Murray, Leslie Fuller, Mel Green, David Hurwitz, Judy Jacklin, Sean Kelly, Mitchell Kriegman, Patricia Marx, Douglas McGrath, Tom Moore, Matt Neuman, Pamela Norris, Michael O'Donoghue, Mark Reisman, David Sheffield, Jeremy Stevens, Terry Sweeney, Bob Tischler, Mason Williams and Dirk Wittenborn.

The Associated Press, mocking the Carters-in-the-Oval-Office sketch, wrote, "The new Saturday Night Live is essentially crude, sophomoric and most of all self-consciously 'cool.'

Under producer Jean Doumanian, Saturday Night Live will define 'risk-taking' as a little naughtier, perhaps a little raunchier; it won't wander too far off the beaten path ...

[50] Hill and Weingrad summarized other reviews: The Washington Star said the show "strained and groaned" while the humor was "almost completely lost, despite desperate attempts to wring it out of raunch."