'SNL' star Heidi Gardner said cracking up in 'Beavis and Butt-Head' sketch gave her anxiety
There was a lot of breaking character during the April 13 episode of “Saturday Night Live,” hosted by Ryan Gosling, but no one broke harder than Heidi Gardner during the now-infamous “Beavis and Butt-Head” sketch.
There was a lot of breaking character during the April 13 episode of “Saturday Night Live,” hosted by Ryan Gosling, but no one broke harder than Heidi Gardner during the now-infamous “Beavis and Butt-Head” sketch.
Gardner played a NewsNation anchor hosting a discussion on AI, but the event is disrupted by two audience members who look exactly like Beavis and Butt-Head, played by Gosling and Mikey Day under makeup and prosthetics.
Gardner completely lost it midway through the sketch when she turned to see Day as Butt-Head sitting behind her. She broke character and couldn’t get herself composed for nearly a minute, leading to huge audience cheers and powering the sketch to 5.6 million views on YouTube and counting.
In an interview with Vulture, Gardner revealed that she had actually seen Gosling and Day in their full prosthetic look at the episode’s dress rehearsal earlier in the night. Many viewers assumed Gardner did not see their final looks until the live taping given how much she broke on air, but she actually did. Day’s exposed gums and teeth made her break both times.
“This makes me feel almost even worse and unprofessional. When I looked and saw Mikey in the dress rehearsal, I lost it. I was shocked,” Gardner said. “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. 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.”
Rating: 5