Ryan Gosling’s Viral Beavis and Butt-Head Skit Was 5 Years in the Making

People watch Saturday Night Live to laugh, of course, but there are laughs and then there are sketches that last forever. This past weekend, Ryan Gosling hosted SNL and the episode may have featured one of those all-time sketches. What starts as a discussion of AI then turns into one of the most absurd and random pop culture references imaginable as two audience members who look like the characters from Beavis and Butt-Head derail the whole thing.

If the sketch felt random, well, not only was that by design, it’s because its writers had been pitching it for the past five years. Here’s the hilarious sketch to get everyone on board.

The sketch was written by Mikey Day, who plays Butt-Head above, and Streeter Seidell. A pair who—according to cast member and host of the sketch, Heidi Gardner—have been wanting to do this for a while.

“It was a sketch that had been put up at table reads and rehearsals for about five years prior to this,” Gardner told Vulture in a new interview. “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.”

This week though, it didn’t just make it to dress rehearsal, it made it to air. “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,” Gardner continued. “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.”

Overall, the sketch also ended up fitting because the whole episode was so driven by pop culture. Gosling’s monologue referenced Barbenheimer and featured a Taylor Swift song. One sketch was about the dog from Beethoven. Another from Erin Brockovich. And Weekend Update focused on a TikTok trend and basketball star Caitlin Clark.

Oh, and though it didn’t make the episode itself, Gosling also followed up his famous Avatar-centic Papyrus SNL sketch with an online-only sequel, and it’s fantastic.

But in the months and years ahead, one just kind of feels it’ll be the Beavis and Butt-Head sketch that people will still be talking about. And rightfully so. Read much, much more about its conception and some behind-the-scenes stories over on Vulture.

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