We love Zach Galifianakis and his rather wacky humor. And that beard? It's a thing of beauty.

Too bad he shaved it off sometime during the March 6th episode of "Saturday Night Live," as his rep confirmed to Zap2it.

In the opening monologue, Galifianakis delivered his signature one-liners while playing the piano. It's difficult to really describe his humor. Some of it's observational, some of it's non-sequitur.

You can also see that he has his full beard here.

The beard continued to make an appearance in the kiss-happy family skit and the one in which a couple was obsessed with bidets. Also, the "Zach Galifianakis: On TV for Over 30 Years" piece totally spoofed his bearded image. Beard here, beard there, beard everywhere until ...

Sometime during the second performance by musical guest Vampire Weekend, however, is when the razor was wielded backstage.

zach-galifianakis-no-beard-saturday-night-live-320.jpgIt's apparent in the "Pageant Talk" skit that he's freshly shorn. Doesn't that skin look rather pale, as if it hasn't seen the light of day from underneath a thicket of hair?

To further confuse matters, Galifianakis reappeared fully bearded at the end of the show to say make his goodbyes. His rep confirmed that was indeed a stunt beard making an appearance.

So what's the big whoop about Galifianakis and his beard or no beard? Well, nothing really, but we think it was a great way to distract us from the show, which only had a few hightlights.

Frankly, we liked Galifianakis' promos for "SNL" better than most of his stuff on the show. Except for the beard of course.  Hanh Nguyen