Ryan Gosling and Mikey Day As ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ Just Won’t Go Away

When it comes to Ryan Gosling and Mikey Day’s Beavis and Butthead sketch on Saturday Night Live, I’m with Twitter account That Week in SNL:

The sketch got a lot of buzz, not because it was hilarious in a vacuum but because it was an instant entry in the SNL Cracking Up Hall of Fame. The normally reliable Heidi Gardner broke character both at dress rehearsal and during the live show, which made her “feel almost even worse and unprofessional. When I looked and saw Mikey in the dress rehearsal, I lost it,” she told Vulture. “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.” (She did.)

The weirdo sketch seemed to have its viral moment, but apparently, Ryan Gosling isn’t done cracking up yet. He enlisted Day to reprise the characters for the premiere of his new movie, The Fall Guy, a PR stunt that on the one hand has nothing to do with that film’s promotion but on the other hand, here I am telling you about it. Publicity!

Was the animated duo come to life at least funny at the premiere? Not from what I can tell. Gosling and Day barely seemed in character as they postured for the paparazzi in generic rock T-shirts. The stunt seemed like one of those Disney World photo ops where favorite characters pose in front of a cartoon backdrop, then retreat to the back of the theme park where they can take off those damn sweaty heads.

What’s up, Mikey Day? You flew all the way to Los Angeles on a Tuesday night — SNL writing night! — to do a five-minute photo session? Dua Lipa is in town for a live show in a few days, so it’s weird to see one of the show’s mainstays on another coast for a few minutes of goofy pictures. 

Maybe Day was just relishing one last moment in the sun for a bit he’d been trying to get on SNL for several seasons. “It was a sketch that had been put up at table reads and rehearsals for about five years prior to this,” Gardner said. “It was a sketch that Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell kept on pitching, like, ‘Before the end of our time here, we have to do the Beavis and Butt-Head sketch.’ It was their white whale; they really wanted to do it. Knowing Ryan is always so down for fun and playful things, my guess is they thought he would be into it.”

Confirmed: Ryan Gosling is into it. Huhuhuhuhuh.