Heidi Gardner reveals what she was really eating during the burger challenge sketch on SNL and tells a story about Dana Carvey during Season 50.
“Saturday Night Live” cast member Heidi Gardner loves a physical comedy bit. The “SNL” veteran has made a habit of going big on camera to hilarious results, from Weekend Update bits as characters whose physical ticks are their personalities (e.g. The Co-Worker Who’s Extremely Busy Doing Seemingly Nothing on Returning to the Office) to go-for-broke bits that often times result in a literal mess on the “SNL” stage.
Case in point: “Mile High Burger Challenge.” The Season 50 sketch follows a group of siblings discussing their ailing father over lunch, but things take a turn when Gardner’s character decides to tackle an eating challenge – finish a 95 oz. burger and jumbo shake in under 10 minutes. As Bowen Yang and Mikey Day discuss the dire circumstance of their father, Gardner absolutely plows through an enormous cheeseburger, egged on by host Nate Bargatze.
As it turns out, the idea for the sketch came to Gardner over the summer before Season 50 got underway.
“Some video popped up on Instagram, not necessarily a woman in a burger challenge, but just eating a really big sandwich. And I started just imagining how uncomfortable it would be to do that a while others were having a serious conversation,” Gardner told TheWrap.
The Kansas City native said that she was always prepared to actually eat a burger onscreen, so when her co-writers started asking what she wanted to be real and what she wanted to be fake, she went for the genuine article.
