Saturday Night Live’s Beavis and Butt-Head Sketch Was in the Works for Five Years

Saturday Night Live‘s Beavis and Butt-Head sketch has taken the internet by storm, quickly becoming one of the most viral sketches from 30 Rock in recent memory. Featuring Ryan Gosling and Mikey Day as the teenage slackers, the sketch is something that’s been in the works at Studio 8H for quite some time, with Day and his writing partner Streeter Seidell always trying to pitch the sketch to the rest of the show’s writing team. According to SNL mainstay Heidi Gardner, the typically stoic repertory player who broke several times during the sketch, it’s always been passed on for a variety of reasons.

“It was a sketch that had been put up at table reads and rehearsals for about five years prior to this. Previously, I was in the sketch but as an audience member. I can’t remember the other castings of it. It never made it to a dress rehearsal,” Gardner said in a new chat with Vulture.

She added, “Every so often, because of timing or the stage it’s in, a sketch might be cut on a Friday night as opposed to a Saturday. That’s what happened the time before. I had never seen the costumes. It was a sketch that Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell kept on pitching, like, ‘Before the end of our time here, we have to do the Beavis and Butt-Head sketch.’ It was their white whale; they really wanted to do it. Knowing Ryan is always so down for fun and playful things, my guess is they thought he would be into it.”

You can see the full sketch in question below.

Who is in the Saturday Night Live cast?

Cast members for Saturday Night Live season 49 include almost the entire cast from season 48 of SNL. Returning stars include Michael Che, Mikey Day, Andrew Dismukes, Chloe Fineman, Heidi Gardner, James Austin Johnson, Punkie Johnson, Colin Jost, Ego Nwodim, Sarah Sherman, Kenan Thompson, and Bowen Yang. Featured players that are part of the cast include returning stars Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow, and Devon Walker, plus the show’s only fully new cast member for the year, newcomer Chloe Troast. The comedy troupe Please Don’t Destroy, made up of Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy, are also a recurring part of the series.

Saturday Night Live Season 49 is ongoing now with new episodes airing on both NBC and Peacock, starting Saturdays at 11:30 PM ET. All 48  seasons of Saturday Night Live are also now streaming on Peacock.