Tom Hanks Surprise-Returns as David S. Pumpkins on SNL Halloween Show: Host Navarrette Digs at Gillis in Monologue
NEW YORK, October 31 — NBC's "Saturday Night Live" returned from a two-week break on Halloween night for its Season 52, and first-time host Inde Navarrette used her opening monologue to dig at an earlier host this season, Shane Gillis, over his controversial joke about how women dress at the gym, according to The Hollywood Reporter and Entertainment Weekly. The night's biggest surprise came in the cold open, when Tom Hanks returned as his Halloween character David S. Pumpkins.
Gillis, hosting an episode in October, had said in his monologue that he had not been to the gym in so long that he did not know women "just dress like whores now," a line that drew widespread backlash at the time. GSM reported the celebrity and online reaction on October 14. With a woman now holding the host's spot, Navarrette brought the joke back up and answered it in her monologue.
The cold open was a haunted-ride sketch called "Tombs of Doom": Kenan Thompson played the tour guide leading visitors played by Jeremy Culhane and Grace Reiter, with Jane Wickline and Sarah Sherman appearing first in a Lizzie Borden exhibit. Hanks then appeared as David S. Pumpkins, flanked as always by two dancing skeletons, played by Mikey Day and, in a surprise return, Bobby Moynihan.
After one dance, James Austin Johnson's Donald Trump crashed the sketch. "Boom! It's me, Donald Trump, your one true God, pausing an 'SNL' skit yet again," he said, spoiling that Pumpkins would just keep popping up, and adding that he and Pumpkins have a lot in common: "We both appeared in 2016. We're both very loud, very orange and very, frankly, annoying."
Johnson's Trump then turned to Tuesday's midterm elections, saying polls were not looking good for Republicans and urging Texas viewers to vote for Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton over Democratic rival James Talarico, despite calling Talarico "much better looking." He introduced a Nicki Minaj played by Saidah Belo-Osagie, and gave former White House press secretary Katie Zacharia, played by Veronika Slowikowska, a try at the show's famous sign-off before shoving her out of frame.
Hanks first played David S. Pumpkins in a 2016 Halloween sketch, and the character has become one of the show's signature Halloween figures over the past decade. The episode, with musical guest Gracie Abrams, was the first of three straight new shows: Druski hosts on November 7 with The Strokes, and John Mulaney returns for a seventh hosting turn on November 14.
Source: GSM America
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：汤姆·汉克斯，Raph_PH 摄，CC BY-SA 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Tom Hanks, by Raph_PH, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
