"Any questions?"note
The David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special is a 20-minute Animated Adaptation of the one-shot Saturday Night Live character David S. Pumpkins, first broadcast on NBC on October 28, 2017.
A man named Kevin Miller (Peter Dinklage) narrates the story of his best Halloween ever, when he and his sister Dotty (Spencer Moss) picked a magic pumpkin and brought forth David S. Pumpkins (Tom Hanks), a perpetually-smiling weirdo in a pumpkin print suit of ambiguous origin with vaguely-defined magical powers. With the help of his two skeleton sidekicks (Bobby Moynihan and Mikey Day), David teaches Kevin and Dotty the true meaning of Halloween.
Any tropes??
- Animated Adaptation: Of the "Haunted Elevator" skit on Saturday Night Live, which had aired a year earlier. It's currently the second SNL skit to be adapted for animation, the other being the failed Coneheads pilot.note
- Berserk Button: David really hates raisins, and throws the first box he finds all the way to the moon.
- Be Yourself: At least that's the lesson Kevin takes away.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- David S. Pumpkin's Pumpkinmobile is revealed to be a giant strawberry.
- After David performs some serious magic, Kevin asks how they will get back to the pumpkin patch in time. David loudly proclaims "Like this!" and the scene cuts to them on the bus.
- Big "WHAT?!": David and the Skeletons' reaction to Kevin not having a trick-or-treating costume.
- Boring Return Journey: Kevin and Dotty return David and his two skeletons to the pumpkin patch via an unpleasant city bus ride.
- Bookends The special begins and ends with the live-action David Pumpkins.
- Easter Bunny: According to Kevin, David is "Halloween's Santa".
- Funny Background Event: As David and the two skeletons break into the dance from the original skit, Kevin looks on completely puzzled while Dottie is happily dancing in place next to him.
- Chekhov's Gun: David's ability to make pumpkins levitate comes in handy when Kevin and Dottie return everyone's candy in their jack-o-lanterns.
- Ghost Story: The local urban legend about the Raincoat Man, who was transformed in a horrible accident and steals kids' candy. The bullies exploit this story to steal candy from trick-or-treaters.
- I Got a Rock: As they gather the candy stolen by the bullies, David tosses all the raisins all the way to the moon. As the kids get their candy back, they mention the absence of raisins; later, the adult Kevin says that David turns raisins to candy.
- Ink-Suit Actor: David Pumpkins himself and the two skeletons, although it was unavoidable, seeing as the characters had already been realized in live action.
- Left the Background Music On: The bullies lampshade how the music is continuing to play while David pointedly avoids singing.
- Mundane Utility: Played straight then subverted. David Pumpkins' main power is levitating and dropping pumpkins, which is basically useless, until they used it to return the candy to all the kids in town.
- Mysterious Past: It's mysterious mainly because David Pumpkins doesn't really say anything about it.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Invoked and lampshaded for laughs. David Pumpkins manages to scare the three bullies by acting like he's about to sing a song... and then not singing it. They all find it so creepy that they run away.
- Perpetual Smiler: David S. Pumpkins himself.
- Raincoat of Horror: The Raincoat Man, a local urban legend, invokes this. The three bullies dress as him to scare kids and take their candy.
- Sequel Hook: Inverted. David Pumpkins make it very clear that the kids will never see him again after that night, and he won't be back next year.
- Shaped Like Itself: The photo David Pumpkins has of himself before "everything changed" and he became David S. Pumpkins the Halloween mascot doesn't look any different. During the same song, Pumpkins says he was born as a baby, his mother was his mom, his father was his dad, and that he "comes from the place where [he's] from".
- Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion:
- Near the end, Kevin stumbles on the rhyme as he talks about how David Pumpkins changes raisins into candy. It upsets him greatly.
- The final line sets up David Pumpkins' Catchphrase "Any questions?" Instead, he says "The End".
- Suspect Is Hatless: David sings a song about his origins in the broadest, most generalized terms possible: he was born as a baby, his mother was his mom, his father was his dad and he came from the place where he's from.
- Thememobile: Parodied. David Pumpkins drives a strawberry-shaped car called The Pumpkinmobile, because "You can't drive a pumpkin, man!"
- Triumphant Reprise: An epic orchestrated version of the hip hop tune from the original sketch plays as David returns everyone's candy.
- The Unreveal: Played for Laughs The special goes out of it's way to not reveal any details about who or what David Pumpkins is or where he's from. The most we learn is that he is or was at one point human and came from Earth, further implying that he's just a weird guy who happens to have magical powers.
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What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Persistent rumors state that it was indeed meant to be an actual family-friendly cartoon Halloween special, but NBC wouldn't give it a Prime Time slot, so Lorne Michaels gave it the 11:30-midnight stretch of SNL's usual slot (the time period where children are more likely to be allowed to stay up late) where a Clip Show was planned.
