It’s been six years since Tom Hanks first showed up at a Halloween episode of Saturday Night Live, put on a jack-o’-lantern suit, and danced as David S. Pumpkins, giving the aging sketch comedy institution one of its most iconic and memorable characters in decades. SNL quickly tried to milk the character by releasing an animated special a year later—furthering the central joke that this is some beloved Halloween figure that you’ve just never heard of—but it’s been relatively quiet until last night, when Hanks’ David S. Pumpkins returned to SNL for a totally brand new sketch:
And when we say “totally brand new,” we mean that it is about 99 percent the same as the original. The original sketch had thrill-seekers on a “Haunted Elevator” ride, meeting various frightening figures on each floor before encountering the very-confusing David S. Pumpkins and his dancing skeletons. This new sketch has thrill-seekers on some kind of prison-themed elevator ride, and the frightening figures on each floor are from movies, but the beats of the sketch are otherwise mostly the same.
The one twist this new one throws in is that some of the people on the ride actually think David S. Pumpkins is cool, but then it ends on the exact same joke where Pumpkins disappears and then shows up behind the riders for a jump scare. If it was a conscious bit where they just do the same jokes again, then shouldn’t they have done it, like, every year? Or was it a meta-commentary on Hollywood horror reboots that just do the same old movie again?
Not to be the kind of people who pitch a better SNL gag on a Sunday morning, but what if it was a straight parody of Halloween Ends, and host Jack Harlow found David S. Pumpkins living in a sewer and was like “teach me” and then he puts on the suit and does the dance with the skeletons. We’re not saying it would’ve been funnier, but it would be good cross-promotion for Peacock (where you can stream Halloween Ends right now!).
Anyway, tune in to SNL next week to see Kate McKinnon come back and play a song on the piano as Hillary Clinton for some reason, we assume.