You just never know which random Saturday Night Live (SNL) sketch will take off and have a life of its own. That’s what’s happened to the Tom Hanks character of David S. Pumpkins, who first appeared in the Saturday Night Live Halloween episode back in 2016, and has since become a pop culture phenomenon. It might be the most popular thing Hanks has done in a decade, if we’re being honest. And this Halloween, David S. Pumpkins and Tom Hanks returned to SNL for the first time in five years. This time, the SNL sketch revealed David S. Pumpkins’ origins. Well, kind of? You can watch the full sketch right here:
In the sketch, three theme park guests go on a Halloween attraction after waiting over an hour in line. Which, as anyone who has been to one of these things knows, was pretty accurate. They came face to face with some of horror cinema’s biggest icons. There’s Freddy Krueger, Annabelle, Michael Myers, and Pennywise the Clown. And, thrown in the mix of SNL‘s Halloween fun is one David S. Pumpkins. And his dancing skeleton buddies, of course. No one can figure out why he’s there, given that he’s not exactly scary. I guess they didn’t see that David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special a few years back.
The sketch finally gave us some inkling of the sinister origins of Mr. Pumpkins, and we learn that his origins lie in… Spain? Yes, it appears that David S. Pumpkins is from the isle of Ibiza. We guess that explains the dancing skeletons. Although, David S. Pumpkins may just live in Spain and may not be originally from there. Halloween icons are just better when their origin stories are shrouded in mystery. We know too much already. If they tell us the backstory of that jacket, well, that will just kill the whole mystique, right? So, for now, Tom Hanks’ David S. Pumpkins goes back into storage. Until hopefully next year, that is.