Revisit SNL Season 49’s Most-Watched Live Sketches

After nearly half a century on the air, Saturday Night Live is still making headlines with its hilarious sketches. And in a new video shared by the show following the May 18 finale, SNL has compiled the top five most-watched live sketches from Season 49 in 2023-2024. Sketches starring Hosts Shane Gillis, Sydney Sweeney, and Bad Bunny have racked up between 5 and 16 million views on the show’s YouTube channel to date — the question is, can you guess which ones drew the most eyeballs?

The numbers are in, and the season might’ve been stolen by an infamous cartoon duo’s real-life lookalikes: Beavis and Butt-Head, played by Mikey Day and Ryan Gosling, who had the entire audience and their fellow cast members cracking up.

RELATED: Watch Will Ferrell, Bowen Yang and John Oliver Star in an Unaired SNL Sketch

SNL Season 49’s most-watched live sketches

Revisit the top 5 most-watched live sketches from SNL Season 49 below — or watch the compilation above for the highlights.

HR Meeting

Kicking off the list with over 5 million YouTube views to date is “HR Meeting” from the February 24, 2024 episode hosted by Shane Gillis. In the sketch, two HR workers (Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman) host a seminar which has the company employees trying to devise creative ways to ask each other out. Gillis is an MVP of the scene, though Marcello Hernández’s character’s “booty khakis” arguably steal the show.

Hooters Waitress

In the fourth spot is “Hooters Waitress” from the March 2, 2024 episode hosted by Sydney Sweeney, with 5.8 million views as of late June 2024. In the sketch, the Anyone But You star plays the most cosmically-gifted Hooters waitress of all time, making thousands in dollars in tips in just one shift — much to the frustration of her co-workers.

Protective Mom 2

The third most-watched sketch with more than 6 million views was “Protective Mom 2,” a sketch from Bad Bunny’s episode on October 21, 2023.  The Puerto Rican megastar was both the Host and Musical Guest, and featured famous faces like Lady Gaga (who introduced his “Un Preview” performance), the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger. Pedro Pascal reprised his “Protective Mom” character to the audience’s delight, , while Bad Bunny playedTia Rosa.

Washington’s Dream

The “Washington’s Dream” sketch from the October 28 episode hosted by stand-up star Nate Bargatze is number two on the list. Written by SNL Season 49 cast member Mikey Day and [SNL co-head writer] Streeter Seidell, the sketch is basically “an ode to America’s weird customs” and it’s gained over 9.4 million YouTube views.

When Day appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers, the Late Night Host praised “Washington’s Dream,” calling it “a perfect sketch.” 

“I don’t often do this, but I walked up to your office, I wanted to let you guys know I was so insanely jealous when I saw it,” Meyers told Day.

Beavis and Butt-Head

The most-watched live sketch of Season 49 was “Beavis and Butt-Head,” which featured Ryan Gosling and Mikey Day as human lookalikes of Mike Judge’s cartoon metalheads. Gosling’s April 13, 2024 episode was the highest-rated of the season, and became the most-streamed SNL episode ever on Peacock. This sketch was the most watched one on YouTube, with 16 million views as of this writing since its live premiere. 

Gosling and Day’s Beavis and Butt-Head proved so popular they even reprised the characters, and crashed The Fall Guy red carpet premiere on April 30. 

SNL‘s 2023 premiere starred former cast member Pete Davidson as Host, while Presumed Innocent star Jake Gyllenhaal hosted the Season finale in 2024. Stream every season of SNL on Peacock as we await SNL‘s historic 50th season.