Who played Beavis and B*tt-Head on SNL? Crew reveals comedy sketch was in talks since 2018 with Jonah Hills as one of the cast

Saturday Night Live (SNL) crew members revealed the beloved Beavis and B*tt-Head sketch has been in talks since 2018. In their Monday, June 3, 2024, interview with The Ankler, show hair stylist Jodi Mancuso and makeup artist Louie Zakarian revealed the sketch had been in talks for six years before it finally aired this April.

On April 13, SNL aired its Beavis and B*tt-Head sketch that featured Ryan Gosling and series regular Mikey Day playing the titular characters, respectively. The skit was one of the best offerings from the show, with Allegra Frank of the Daily Beast calling it "the funniest stuff" done on the show.

Beavis and B*tt-Head is an American animated sitcom featuring two socially unintelligent teenage delinquents who comment on music videos, reality TV, and the internet. In a 1993 article, Rolling Stones magazine described the duo as "thunderously stupid and excruciatingly ugly."

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"I said, too bad, I'm going to trust myself on this on"—SNL hairstylist explains disagreement over Beavis and B*tt-Head wigs led to the sketch getting canned

Mancuso and Zakarian revealed the sketch featuring the MTV characters was first proposed in 2018 when Jonah Hill was set to host SNL.

In addition to Gosling and Day, the sketch featured Heidi Gardner as a NewsNation host interviewing an AI expert played by Kenan Thompson. As Gardner questioned Thompson, he was distracted by a man looking like Beavis (Gosling). Heidi's character then asks the man to move.

While he obliged, he was replaced by a man looking like B*tt-Head (Day). When Heidi turned around to ask him to move, she broke character and started laughing. She later told Vulture that it was Mikey's "exposed gums and teeth" that made her lose her composure. By the time the sketch ended, Gosling, Day, and Chloe Fineman, who played an audience member too, were seen visibly laughing.

For his role, Gosling donned a prosthetic nose with a tall yellow hairpiece, and Day wore a wig with fake braces. The hair-and-makeup duo explained that the first time they canned the sketch, Jodi Mancuso was not happy with the wigs.

Jodi added that the SNL crew pitched the idea again, but writer Streeter Seidell and Mikey wanted to use those "exact wigs," with which she disagreed. She stated,

"I disagreed with them and told them that I'm not doing it like that. We need to make them a little more human. Streeter was against it the whole time and I said, too bad, I'm going to trust myself on this one."

Talking about Mikey Day's look, Louie Zakarian told The Ankler that he added a "little bridge" that went into the mouth and lifted the lip on the fake teeth. During the later rendition of the prosthetic, Zakarian made the bridge more prominent, transforming Day into the perfect B*tt-Head.

Talking about Gardner breaking character, Mancuso told the publication,

"People love when the (cast) breaks because it's funny, right? But when you have a moment like Heidi did, I mean, come on. It was funny, and it made everybody else enjoy that moment even more."

Per IndieWire, the April 13 SNL episode featuring the said sketch became its most-watched episode since 2021 and currently has over 14 million views on YouTube.