October 28, 2017
The David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special is an animated Halloween television special that aired on NBC on October 28, 2017. It stars Tom Hanks as Saturday Night Live character David S. Pumpkins. The 21-minute special was written by and also features Mikey Day, Bobby Moynihan, and Streeter Seidell. Peter Dinklage narrates the story, which follows a brother and sister who go trick-or-treating, meet Pumpkins and catch the troublemakers who had disrupted Halloween.
Storyline
The Halloween Special starts and ends with live-action segments directed by Don Roy King featuring David S. Pumpkins (Hanks), flanked by two skeletons (Day and Moynihan). The animated part is a man, Kevin (Dinklage), talking about the time he met Pumpkins as a kid.
Kevin and his sister Dotty walk around during Halloween, eventually finding themselves in a pumpkin patch. They choose to take home an ugly pumpkin, which turns out to be magical; Pumpkins and the skeletons appear out of an elevator. He shows them to his transport, shaped like a strawberry, and they start trick-or-treating. One of the neighborhood children is dressed as Kevin Roberts, an SNLcharacter portrayed by Larry David whose sketch has traits similar to Pumpkins' "Haunted Elevator."
A mysterious Raincoat Man has been stealing all the children's candy, so Pumpkins decides to intervene. They try to confront the Raincoat Man in a haunted house, who turns out to be three pre-teens who had bullied Kevin. Pumpkins returns the candy using magical floating pumpkins, and he and the skeletons depart.