“SNL” cast member Heidi Gardner completely cracked during Mikey Day and Ryan Gosling’s “Beavis and Butt-Head” sketch on Saturday, something she later said made her feel unprofessional. On Thursday, the show’s Instagram account shared time-lapse video and additional footage that showed how Day’s makeup changed between run-thru, dress rehearsal, and air—and it’s easy to understand why Gardner was essentially defenseless against Day’s character’s appearance.
The split-screen video begins with footage from Wednesday’s red-thru as well as Day’s makeup application. Gardner has no problem with the sketch at first, but was unable to contain herself at run-thru on Saturday. She struggled even more during the sketch’s live airing.
In an interview with Vulture, Gardner explained that having seen Day during dress rehearsal didn’t help anything. “This makes me feel almost even worse and unprofessional,” she explained. “When I looked and saw Mikey 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.’”
“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,” she added.
Gardner played a host of a NewsNation town hall in the sketch. As she interviewed Kenan Thompson’s fake A.I. “expert,” he soon became distracted by Gosling’s character, a man who looked an awful lot like Beavis from “Beavis and Butt-Head.” After Gardner asked him to move, he was replaced by Day’s character, who looked overwhelmingly like Butt-Head.
Naturally, Day and Gosling somehow ended up sitting next to one another centerstage, at which point Gosling, Day, Gardner, and Chloe Fineman had all cracked up. Thompson was the lone cast member who kept his composure throughout the entire sketch.
Watch the footage in the video above.