Posted in: NBC, Peacock, TV | Tagged: nbc, peacock, saturday night live, snl

SNL: How "Beavis and Butt-Head" Made It From Read-Thru to On-Air

SNL released a video showing how the "Beavis and Butt-Head" sketch made it from read-thru to being on-air and Mikey Day's transformation.

By now, we're pretty sure that you're familiar with just how big this past weekend's "Beavis and Butt-Head" sketch was on NBC's Saturday Night Live. Set during a NewsNation livestream event on AI involving Heidi Gardner's interviewer, Bobbi Moore, and Kenan Thompson's expert professor, things take a sharp left turn when host Ryan Gosling and SNL's Mikey Day show up in the audience who are definitely not Beavis and Butt-Head – and that's why it works. Sure, the absurdity of the premise gets you halfway there – but it is Gosling's & Day's ability to seem generally sincere when they say they've never heard of the animated characters that bring it home. But as great as they were, the big reason why the sketch is getting all this attention is all about Gardner's reaction to seeing Day – a break that meant so much more because Gardner isn't known for breaking.

Now, SNL is sharing a look at how the sketch went from read-thru to finally making it onto air, as well as a look at the makeup & effects regiment that Day had to undergo to perfect that perfect "Butt-Head" look:

"This makes me feel almost even worse and unprofessional. When I looked and saw Mikey [Day] in the dress rehearsal, I lost it. I was shocked. I'm thinking about it right now and laughing. I recovered and tried to tell myself in between dress and the live show, 'You can't laugh like that again,'" Gardner revealed to Vulture, adding that she thought she would be prepared for it not that the "shock" was gotten out of the way during dress rehearsal. "I was trying to imagine seeing him in my head, so I was prepared for it, but I just couldn't prepare for what I saw. I really tried. I even saw Mikey out of the corner of my eye seconds before I went live. I saw the red shorts. I knew I couldn't look over there again. Mikey even told me later that he was bending down and hiding himself so I wouldn't see him."

While she had a chance to preview some of what Day and the show's effects team had in store for the sketch, it wasn't until the sketch itself hit that Gardner got a better appreciation for Day's Butt-Head. "The dress rehearsal was when the prosthetics made their debut — the noses and the mouths. I didn't know about Mikey's exposed gums and teeth," she explained. But if there's one thing that SNL EP Lorne Michaels has had a love/hate relationship with over the past nearly 50 seasons is cast members breaking – arguing that it takes the viewers out of the reality of the sketch.

While she appreciated the reaction from the audience, Gardner admits that she "left the stage a little bit in shock" when the sketch ended – worried that she hadn't done right by the sketch and others in the sketch. "It's really hard for me to give myself any sort of credit because I didn't do the job. I hope, for those guys and their portrayals of Beavis and Butt-Head, that it helped how shocked I was by how funny they were," she explained. "And I hope it helps people think of the sketch. I'll never be able to shake looking over my shoulder and seeing what I saw. That's really special."

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!