1981 season was so disastrous that NBC called in  programming executive Dick Ebersol (qv) (one of the creative  masterminds of the original show) to save the show. Ebersol fired  producer Jean Doumanian (qv) and the rest of the cast except  Eddie Murphy (I) (qv) and Joe Piscopo (qv). He hired a new cast  and was able to put one show on the air before a writers strike  shut down production for the remainder of the season.