SNL's "Beavis and Butt-Head" Sketch Won Emmys for Ryan Gosling's Transformation
Saturday Night Live's hair and makeup departments picked up two awards for creating Gosling and Day's cast-breaking looks.
In the weeks leading up to February 16's three-hour 50th anniversary celebration on NBC, the team behind Saturday Night Live has selected one sketch from every single season — 50 seasons in 50 days — to reflect the show's rich legacy across five decades. Presenting the sketch chosen to represent Season 49: "Beavis and Butt-Head" starring Host Ryan Gosling and Mikey Day.
Capturing the look of a well-known pop culture figure — quickly — is all in a day's work for Saturday Night Live's creative teams, who nail every detail with wigs, makeup, wardrobe, and even prosthetics. All of those were fully on point in Season 49's "Beavis and Butt-Head" sketch, in which April 13, 2024 Host Ryan Gosling and cast member Mikey Day fully became human versions of Mike Judge's cartoon headbangers.
Or, more accurately, the actors became two perfectly normal guys who bore an insane resemblance to the animated duo.
The sketch is framed as an episode of a talk show called News Nation, in which an AI-skeptical professor (Kenan Thompson) visited to chat with a journalist (Heidi Gardner). But less than a minute in, the camera revealed an audience member (Gosling) that no one — including Thompson's professor — could take their eyes off of: A young man in a blue "Death Rock" T-shirt who would look extremely familiar to fans of Judge's MTV series about two goofy couch potatoes that ran for eight seasons in the 1990s (and was most recently revived in 2022).
"Professor, is there a problem?" Gardner's journalist asked.
"Um, yeah. There is a gentleman in your audience who looks strikingly similar to Beavis, from the cartoon Beavis and Butt-Head," the professor admitted. "Just a little distracting."
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At that point, Gosling turned to reveal the full majesty of his blond pompadour wig and prosthetic Beavis nose, as he obliviously scanned the crowd for the man in question.
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Turning to ask the Beavis doppelgänger to move his seat, Gardner hid a small laugh as the near-unrecognizable Gosling stared back.
Ryan Gosling and Mikey Day's Beavis and Butt-Head made everyone break character
Though Gosling's character said he had never heard of Beavis, he moved to sit elsewhere. But he was soon replaced by a second man (Mikey Day) who, by complete coincidence, looked exactly like Butt-Head in his "SKULL" shirt.
"Oh my GOD," Thompson's professor exclaimed mid-sentence. "Are you serious?"
"Professor, just because our audience members aren't as informed on the issue as you doesn't make them 'butt-heads,'" Gardner's journalist said upon hearing his new complaint. (Day's Butt-Head nodded in somber agreement.)
But when Gardner nonetheless turned to ask Day's character to relocate, the sight of Day-as-Butt-Head (complete with a non-existent upper lip) proved too much. Holding up a hand at Day, who remained in character as he looked around, Gardner needed a minute to recover.
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"Kindly move seats?" she asked the man, who misunderstood and nudged his neighbor (Michael Longfellow) instead.
"She's talking to you," Longfellow informed the Butt-Head, whose reaction set Gardner off again (and who can blame her?).
But when Gosling's Beavis and Day's Butt-Head then sat next to each other, the actors erupted into giggles at how ridiculous the other looked.
"You two really don't know that you look like Beavis and Butt-Head?!" the professor yells.
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"I've heard rumblings that I look like someone from TV, but maybe it's this Beavis person? I don't know," Gosling said, as he and Day did their best to keep it together (and we possibly heard Chloe Fineman snort in the background). "I don't watch much television, I have an incredibly busy life," he added.
And yet the two performers' Beavis and Butt-Head laughs were as spot-on as their hair and makeup.
Watch the cast-breaking Season 49 SNL sketch, which ends with a quick tribute to another iconic Mike Judge cartoon, above.
Ryan Gosling's "Beavis and Butt-Head" episode won SNL two Emmys for hair and makeup
The show's standout transformations were a hit with audiences, and with awards voters. When Saturday Night Live picked up six Creative Arts Emmys in 2024, three of them honored Ryan Gosling's episode: Liz Patrick's win for Outstanding Directing For A Variety Series, Outstanding Hairstyling For A Variety, Nonfiction Or Reality Program, and Outstanding Makeup for a Variety, Nonfiction or Reality Program.
That wasn't the sketch's only impact outside of Studio 8H. Two weeks after his episode, Ryan Gosling actually walked the red carpet of his The Fall Guy premiere with Mikey Day — both of them in character as their Beavis and Butt-Head lookalikes, Dean and Jeff. Read more about the stunt here.
Originally published Apr 14, 2024.
