Tom Hanks ‘Hated’ David S. Pumpkins As Much As You Do

Let’s begin with the part that sounds fake but is apparently true: according to Bobby Moynihan, Tom Hanks initially hated the sketch that would become one of Saturday Night Live’s weirdest modern classics. Yes, David S. Pumpkins the orange-suited chaos goblin of Halloween almost didn’t happen in the form we know. And honestly? That may be the most David S. Pumpkins detail possible.

Because if you’ve ever watched the original “Haunted Elevator” sketch and thought, “I hate this,” followed immediately by, “Wait… why am I laughing so hard?” congratulations: you are having the intended experience. The character works because he makes no sense, arrives with complete confidence, and leaves everyone (including the audience) feeling like they missed a memo from some secret Halloween board of directors.

In this article, we’ll unpack why the Tom Hanks David S. Pumpkins bit became such a lasting SNL phenomenon, why the “hated it” story actually makes the sketch better, and why absurd comedy sometimes lands harder than a perfectly crafted joke. Any questions?

What the “Tom Hanks hated it” story really means

The headline version is juicy: Tom Hanks hated David S. Pumpkins. The fuller version is funnier and more useful for understanding comedy. Bobby Moynihan recently recalled that when he, Mikey Day, and Streeter Seidell turned in the sketch, Hanks reportedly wanted them to give it to someone else. Then, between dress rehearsal and the live broadcast, Hanks leaned into the absurdity, decided to “just be weird,” and the sketch popped.

That doesn’t sound like a star “rejecting” a sketch so much as a veteran comedian trying to find the exact frequency where nonsense becomes art. In other words: he wasn’t wrong to be skeptical. David S. Pumpkins is a sketch that should fail. It is built like a dare.

Think about the ingredients:

• A haunted elevator ride with a standard horror setup.
• A random guy in a pumpkin suit with no clear mythology.
• Two dancing skeletons who explain nothing.
• A song, a pose, and a catchphrase instead of answers.

On paper, that can read like 3 a.m. writers’ room chaos (which, to be fair, Moynihan also described it as basically a fever dream). On stage, though, it became a masterclass in commitment. Hanks didn’t just perform a weird character; he performed a character who believed everyone else was the weird one for not understanding him.

Why David S. Pumpkins is funny (even when people say they hate him)

1) The sketch is designed to trigger your confusion

One of the smartest explanations of the sketch is also the simplest: David S. Pumpkins is supposed to confuse you. The joke isn’t just “look at this odd man.” The joke is the reaction to him especially the increasingly frustrated attempt to figure out what he is doing in a haunted attraction.

That structure matters. Instead of asking the audience to laugh with the random character immediately, the sketch lets the riders (and us) ask the obvious questions first. Why is he on this floor? Why is he on most of the floors? Is he a local commercial mascot? Is he scary? Is he famous? Is he licensed?

The brilliance is that the sketch never rewards that curiosity with a satisfying explanation. It replaces logic with energy. That mismatch serious questioning versus deeply unserious answers is what makes the bit stick in your brain.

2) Tom Hanks plays the absurdity completely straight

If David S. Pumpkins had been played as a “wink-wink” joke, he would have died on arrival. But Tom Hanks gives the character full prestige treatment. He walks in like a Halloween headliner with a backstory, fan club, and contractual rider even though the script is basically saying, “Nope, he’s just a guy. He’s his own thing.”

That level of commitment creates the tension the sketch needs. The riders are trying to place him in a category. Hanks refuses categories. The audience is trying to decode the sketch. Hanks performs as if no decoding is necessary. The result is comic gaslighting, but festive.

3) The voice and rhythm made the character iconic

Part of the character’s magic is musical: the voice, the cadence, the timing, the mini-song quality of his entrances. Reports around the sketch’s oral-history era highlighted that Hanks improvised the now-famous David S. Pumpkins voice during the live show rather than simply repeating a dress rehearsal version. That kind of last-second choice is exactly the kind of thing that can make a good sketch feel alive.

You can hear it in the delivery. It sounds like a host who found the bit’s secret engine and stepped on the gas. Suddenly the sketch isn’t just weird it’s weird with rhythm, which is often the difference between “What is this?” and “I am sending this to five people.”

The perfect time for a nonsense icon

David S. Pumpkins didn’t emerge in a vacuum. He showed up during a period when SNL and much of pop culture were heavily saturated with politics and election coverage. That made a completely nonpolitical, aggressively pointless Halloween character feel like a release valve.

In hindsight, this helps explain the sketch’s rapid spread. People weren’t just laughing at a funny bit; they were sharing a communal break from commentary, takes, and doom-scrolling. David S. Pumpkins wasn’t asking viewers to pick a side, decode symbolism, or keep up with news cycles. He just wanted to scare the hell out of you. Badly. Repeatedly. In a pumpkin suit.

Sometimes absurd comedy wins because it is smarter than everything else in the room. And sometimes it wins because it is gloriously dumber. David S. Pumpkins managed to be both.

From one sketch to Halloween folklore

The original “Haunted Elevator” breakout

The original sketch aired during Tom Hanks’s 2016 SNL hosting appearance and quickly became the kind of bit people quote every October. It also benefited from a strong setup: a haunted attraction with recognizable scares, then a hard left turn into David S. Pumpkins and his dancing skeletons. That contrast gave the character a clean entrance and made the confusion feel immediate.

Critics at the time noted both reactions at once: some viewers loved how stupid it was; others couldn’t understand why it was becoming such a thing. Ironically, that split reaction only made it more viral. If half the internet is laughing and the other half is saying “I don’t get it,” congratulations, your sketch now has free marketing.

The animated special era

Once a sketch becomes a seasonal catchphrase, expansion is almost inevitable. David S. Pumpkins quickly graduated from “one bizarre SNL character” to “NBC thinks this may be a Halloween franchise.” That led to an animated special, which further cemented the character’s place in modern SNL lore.

Whether viewers considered that a brilliant escalation or proof that we had all collectively inhaled too much pumpkin spice is beside the point: it confirmed the character had moved beyond a one-night sketch and into repeat-Halloween territory.

The 2022 return: same costume, new chaos

When David S. Pumpkins returned in 2022, the response was part nostalgia and part debate. Many fans were thrilled to see Tom Hanks back in the suit, while some critics pointed out that the new sketch intentionally echoed the beats of the original. That split reaction was almost poetic.

Because repeating yourself is exactly the kind of thing a character like David S. Pumpkins would do. He doesn’t evolve in the conventional sense. He reappears. He dances. He raises more questions. The lore expands just enough to be fun (hello, random details) while preserving the core gag: everyone around him wants clarity, and he offers vibes.

Why the “I hate this” reaction is part of the joke

Let’s be honest: some people genuinely dislike David S. Pumpkins. That’s fine. In fact, that may be evidence the sketch is doing its job. Absurd comedy often works by creating friction before payoff. It asks you to sit in discomfort not emotional discomfort, but structural discomfort: “Where is this going?” “Why is this happening?” “Is there a point?”

David S. Pumpkins answers those questions with a theatrical shrug and a dance break. If you need traditional setup-payoff precision, he can feel annoying. If you enjoy comedy that turns confusion into momentum, he can feel like a mini-masterpiece.

That’s why the “Tom Hanks hated it” anecdote resonates so much. It mirrors the audience’s first reaction. The difference is that Hanks found the lane: don’t explain the sketch, don’t over-rationalize it, and don’t apologize for it. Play it like the audience should already know who David S. Pumpkins is. The confidence is the punchline.

What content creators and comedy writers can learn from David S. Pumpkins

Commitment beats explanation

Not every idea needs an essay attached to it. Some bits work because they arrive fully committed and let the audience catch up later. In content terms, David S. Pumpkins is a reminder that tone can carry concept.

Reaction shots are the secret sauce

The sketch isn’t just about Pumpkins. It’s about the people trying to process him. The audience sees itself in those reactions, which keeps the absurdity grounded. If you’re writing comedy, give the viewers an on-screen proxy who asks what they’re asking.

“Polarizing” can be a strength

A lot of memorable comedy is initially divisive. If nobody is confused, annoyed, delighted, or quoting it the next day, it may be too tidy. David S. Pumpkins survives because it invites a response even when that response begins with “I hate this.”

Final verdict: Tom Hanks didn’t just save David S. Pumpkins he completed the joke

The best way to understand the legend of David S. Pumpkins is to stop treating the “hated it” story like a contradiction. It’s actually the origin story. Skepticism was part of the process. The sketch was weird in the room, weird on the page, and weird in rehearsal. Then Tom Hanks found the performance angle that made the weirdness feel intentional instead of accidental.

That’s why the character still gets discussed years later. Not because he’s coherent. Not because the lore is deep. Not because there’s a hidden meaning. He lasts because the sketch captures a very specific comic pleasure: the moment when everyone involved knows an idea is ridiculous and commits anyway.

So if you still “hate” David S. Pumpkins, that’s okay. You’re standing exactly where the sketch wants you one confused beat away from laughing. Any questions?

Shared viewer experiences: why David S. Pumpkins feels weirdly personal (about 500 extra words)

One reason the David S. Pumpkins SNL sketch has such long legs is that people don’t just remember the lines they remember the experience of encountering it. It’s the kind of sketch that creates a story around itself. You don’t just say, “I watched a comedy bit.” You say, “Someone showed me this thing and I spent three minutes asking what was happening before I started laughing.”

That pattern shows up again and again in how fans talk about the character. A friend sends the clip with zero context. A sibling quotes “Any questions?” in October and refuses to explain why. A coworker changes their chat avatar to a pumpkin suit. Someone at a Halloween party plays the music, and suddenly half the room is delighted while the other half looks like they accidentally walked into a sketch studies seminar.

That split reaction is not a bug. It’s the social fuel. David S. Pumpkins is one of those rare pop-culture jokes that works for both insiders and skeptics. If you know the bit, you laugh at the references, the poses, the skeleton dance, the random confidence. If you don’t know the bit, your confusion becomes part of the entertainment because longtime fans get to relive their own first reaction by watching yours.

There’s also a seasonal element that makes the experience stronger. Halloween already gives people permission to be playful, theatrical, and a little stupid. Unlike many recurring comedy characters, David S. Pumpkins doesn’t need year-round relevance. He just needs one month where everyone is ready for costumes, inside jokes, and mildly unhinged energy. That annual rhythm turns a sketch into a ritual. The character disappears, then returns right when people are in the mood for him again like a migrating bird, if the bird wore a pumpkin tuxedo and traveled with breakdancing skeletons.

For content creators, that’s a useful lesson in audience behavior. Memorable material often creates a repeatable social moment, not just a one-time laugh. People revisit David S. Pumpkins because the clip is funny, sure but also because it’s fun to introduce someone else to it. The “conversion moment” (“Wait, what is this?” → “Okay, this is killing me”) is part of the product. In marketing terms, the sketch practically contains its own onboarding flow.

Another relatable experience tied to this topic is the way opinions soften over time. Plenty of viewers initially reject the sketch because it feels too random, too repetitive, or too internet-brained. Then, months later, they hear the catchphrase, see the suit, or rewatch the clip with a different crowd, and suddenly it lands. Not because the sketch changed because the viewer’s context changed. They now understand that the point is not to solve David S. Pumpkins. The point is to witness a room fully commit to nonsense and invite you into it.

That’s why the character persists as a modern Halloween icon. The experience around David S. Pumpkins is communal, quote-friendly, and delightfully low-stakes. You don’t need deep canon knowledge. You don’t need to memorize lore. You just need to accept, for a few minutes, that a man in a pumpkin suit has appeared, he is definitely part of it, and everyone is going to have questions. That shared surrender confusion first, laughter second is the whole magic trick.