The cast of Saturday Night Live includes some of the best entertainers in showbiz who can withstand the high pressures of live television. But now and then, the sketches they work on get too funny, causing them to hilariously break character. While it’s most common for celebrity guest hosts, like Pedro Pascal, to break, seasoned cast members can succumb to the giggles too. The latest to experience this was Heidi Gardner, who couldn’t help but burst into laughter during a sketch inspired by the 90s cartoon Beavis and Butt-Head.
In the sketch, Gardner plays a moderator for a NewsNation livestream on the dangers of AI. Her guest is an MIT professor played by Kenan Thompson. Trying to explain his position, the academic is quickly distracted by a man who looks just like the character Beavis, played by guest host Ryan Gosling in a blonde pompadour, nose prosthetics, and a bright blue shirt.
After Thompson’s character points out the uncanny resemblance, Gardner says she doesn’t know the cartoon. Still, he requests that the man move to a different seat to accommodate the professor. Gosling, trying his best not to laugh, agrees to switch places. The two cast members resume their AI discussion, but Thompson’s character is once again thrown off. This time, it’s a man who looks just like Butt-Head, played by Mikey Day, seated just behind Gardner, in Thompson’s eyeline. Hoping to get the conversation back on track, she turns to the man to ask him to switch places too, but Gardner loses it at the sight of Day’s while look. She laughs for about 20 seconds, before carrying on with the script.
At this point, the Beavis and Butt-Head-looking men at seated next to each other like in the same position as the characters in the original cartoon. Even Chloe Fineman, who appears to ask a question from behind the two cartoon-like characters, tries her best not to break.
In an interview with Vulture after the show, Gardner reflected on the moment: “I can’t help what I saw, but people were okay with it. Not only okay with it but encouraged it. That’s all the feedback I’ve gotten since.”
Many have wondered if that was the first time Gardner had seen Day in the costume, given that SNL does a dress rehearsal before the live show. Gardner explained that she had seen him and also lost it then. While she tried really hard not to laugh at it, Day’s expression during the live show broke her. “Mikey does seem to turn his head just a little bit and bug out his eyes,” she recalled. “It’s like he’s doing a subtle acknowledgment. That was new.”
The actress added that she left the stage in shock, but said that people clapping for her while she broke was nice. “Then the anxiety set in and I was like, ‘Oh my God, was that okay?’ I had some friends in my dressing room, and they were like, ‘Of course, it was okay.’ So many other writers and cast members came up and said, ‘Good job.’ I’m like, ‘What? I actually didn’t do my job.’”
Heidi Gardner broke character during this “Beavis and Butt-Head” SNL sketch.
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If you need a refresher on how the cartoon versions of Beavis and Butt-Head look, here’s a refresher:
Heidi Gardner: Instagram
h/t: [Today]
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