wanting to distance the show from its first five seasons, ebersol cut the popular opening line "live from new york, it's saturday night!" from the cold openings. in fact, sometimes cold openings were not even shown and the monologues were skipped over almost entirely. these changes were not permanent, as ebersol decided to reverse them for the . each episode began with the announcement "and now from new york, the most dangerous city in america, it's saturday night live!" after the opening credits, the cast would enter together and pose with the show's host before running to their places for the first sketch.