Jonah Hill Almost Starred In the Beavis and Butthead Sketch on 'SNL'

By Andrew Sanford | TV | June 5, 2024 |

By Andrew Sanford | TV | June 5, 2024 |

SNL pitch days are tough. Writers and actors sit in a room, often on the floor. They surround the week’s host and toss out ideas that can be fully formed or still in their infancy. They could have the sketches already written or have an idea like, “Tom Hanks is a MAGA voter on Black Jeopardy.” The process can be grueling and most sketches don’t make it to air. That doesn’t mean the sketches go away forever, as evidenced by the Beavis and Butthead sketch from his recent episode.

Heidi Gardner is hosting a Town Hall in the sketch when her guest, played by Kenan Thompson, notices that someone in the crowd looks like Beavis from Beavis and Butthead. That person is Ryan Gosling, dressed exactly like the eponymous cartoon character. When he’s asked to move, he’s replaced by Mikey Day dressed as Butthead. Gardner, Gosling, and Day can hardly keep it together. Hilarity ensues.

SNL hair stylist Jodi Mancuso and makeup artist Louie Zakarian were interviewed on The Ankler recently, and they revealed that the sketch has been in the works since 2018. At the time, the host playing Beavis or Butthead would have been Jonah Hill. However, the wigs were not to Mancuso’s liking. “Even at that time, it was late coming into the show, so there wasn’t a lot of prep time, and I wasn’t fully happy with the wigs,” the stylist told the website. “Then I think we tried it again, and again, I wasn’t happy with it,” she explained. “So we fully gave up on it. This is not going to happen.”

It’s wild to think that the sketch, arguably the most popular this season, was almost done sooner. When it came up in the pitch room again, Mancuso convinced writer Streeter Seidell and Mikey Day that the wigs should be “a little more human.” There’s also the case of Mikey Day’s brace-covered teeth. Zakarian had this to say about what he did to Day’s face. “I made this crazy little bridge that goes into his mouth and the first time it didn’t lift his lip up enough,” Zakarian said. “This time I went in and redid it and made it a little more prominent and made it pop a little more. Just having his lip have those braces and those teeth exposed, it really did help.”

A lot of hard work goes into these sketches! Even the ones that seem like silly, throw-away ideas require a lot of time and attention. It’s why SNL is still going. It’s a regulated machine with lots of moving parts. Many departments present copious suggestions and ideas, even if the sketch is simply “Wouldn’t it be hilarious if Ryan Gossling looked like Beavis?” The answer is: Yes.