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SNL: Kenan Thompson on "Beavis and Butt-Head" Sketch, Not Breaking

SNL star Kenan Thompson discusses the "Beavis and Butt-Head" sketch, how dress rehearsal helped him from breaking on-air, and more.

It's "The Sketch That Would Not Die" – mostly because it might be one of the best Saturday Night Live sketches in quite some time. 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 during the "Beavis and Butt-Head" sketch when SNL host Ryan Gosling and SNL's Mikey Day show up in the audience – and they are definitely not Beavis and Butt-Head. That's why it works. Sure, the absurdity of the premise gets us halfway there – but it is Gosling's & Day's ability to seem generally sincere when they say they've never heard of the animated duo that nearly drives it home. But the biggest reason why the sketch is getting all this attention is all about Gardner's reaction to seeing Day – a momentous break that meant so much more because Gardner isn't known for breaking. Now, Thompson is offering some additional insight into the sketch – including how he was able to keep playing it straight.

"It's hit or miss. Sometimes I can hold it, sometimes I can't. I got lucky on 'Beavis and Butt-Head' that I cracked so hard at dress rehearsal," Thompson shared during an interview with Variety, sharing that having enough of a sense of what was to come helped him keep things in check when the show went live. "I haven't had a break like that in a while where I was in tears and I couldn't talk. It was that funny to me, and what I was about to say next was funny to me. And I was frozen. I was literally quivering, and then I started to panic. Because I was like, I can't talk without cry-talking. I don't want to waste the line! It could throw off everything. It was like, three seconds of just chaos."

Though he hasn't "been quiver-lipped in a long time," Thompson admits to "smirks" creeping in every now and then. "Not that I'm a control freak, but I definitely had a moment where I [realized I] don't have control at all. I can't just sit here and laugh! We're supposed to be doing a job. And I'm laughing, and the camera is just stuck on me because it's my line, and I can't get it out," he added. And Thompson had nothing but praise for Day's and Gosling's performances and Day's writing.

"It's the absolute best to find something so funny, written by someone you adore. I've known Mikey for almost 25 years, so you're rooting for them. Ryan is such a gem. People who are that successful don't have to be. He doesn't have to be as warm as he is. He's a professional, so he's playing it very real. We know it's very funny, but that's what makes it funny — the fact that he's so in it and not messing with it. That's kind of the art that we're trying to show."

"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."

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