Saturday Night Live’s David S. Pumpkins Makes Grand Return

David Pumpkins made his return to Saturday Night Live during its latest episode, played again by Tom Hanks in a surprise cameo. As in the original David Pumpkins sketch, “David Pumpkins Returns” sees a group of people (Ego Nwodim, Andrew Dismukes, and host Jack Harlow) looking for scares while attending a prison-themed haunted. Each cell contains a classic horror movie villain until David Pumpkins appears with his two dancing skeleton sidekicks (Mikey Day and former Saturday Night Live star Bobby Moynihan). This puzzles the guests, and David Pumpkins’ evasive answers to their questions don’t help the situation, but in the end, he gets a good scare out of them.

This is the second sketch to focus on David Pumpkins after the character went viral following his debut in 2016. He has been referenced by Dave Chappelle in another sketch, and appeared as “David S. Pimpkins” in a pre-recorded sketch called “Rap Song.” NBC also aired an animated .

Moynihan, Day, and Streeter Seidell wrote the original sketch that introduced David. S. Pumpkins. Speaking to Vulture for an oral history of the character, they expressed that they were pleased to write something apolitical during the heated 2016 election cycle.

“Last season was electrifying from the get-go with all the political stuff. All of a sudden, there were so many eyes on the show, and it was being talked about like it hadn’t been,” Seidell recalled. “But then we were all just pumped Tom Hanks was hosting. If you’re our age, you grew up with Tom Hanks. You’re just praying that he’s cool and nice, and then he is, and you’re like, ‘Oh, thank God.’ We were happy to not write a political sketch.”

Hanks also appeared in another sketch during last night’s episode involving a pitch for a new Pixar movie. Another sketch saw Batman’s archnemesis, the Joker, playing best man at a wedding. 

Harlow served as both host and musical guest for last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live. The episode also featured the return of Cecily Strong, who had been missing from the season thus far, for a string of new episodes leading into the holidays. The off-season saw one of the biggest talent turnarounds for Saturday Night Live in recent memory.  During the summer, the show lost Kyle Mooney,  Aidy Bryant, Pete Davidson, Kate McKinnon, Melissa Villaseñor, Aristotle Athari, Alex Moffat, and Chris Redd. Newcomers to the show this season include featured players Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow, and Devon Walker. Colin Jost is still the show’s head writer and hosts the show’s Weekend Update segment with Michael Che.

Hosts this season thus far have included Miles Teller, Brendan Gleeson, and Megan Thee Stallion. Next week, comedian Amy Schumer will host for the third time with musical guest Steve Lacy.