Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: October 27, 2018

Tonight, Saturday Night Live becomes Saturday Night Un-Dead as “SNL Presents: Halloween” along with some help from David S. Pumpkins. How’s it hangin’!?

Saturday Night Live is taking another weekend off and tonight, the NBC variety series will celebrate Halloween with a two-part entertainment package that includes an hour of SNL‘s best Halloween comedy sketches followed by the now annual holiday television tradition, “The David S. Pumpkins Animated Halloween Special.”

Starting tonight at 11:30pm on NBC, Saturday Night Live begins a bewitching hour of its scary funny comedy with SNL Presents: Halloween. This best-of hour of SNL‘s biggest Halloween laughs first debuted last season. And we’ll see tonight if any of the original sketches that were first included in this hour get swapped out for an updated version. It would certainly work if the SNL – Digital Short from this season’s Seth Meyers hosted show called “A Frightening Tale” featuring a group of adult campers sitting around a fire with Seth Meyers telling a true horror story about being stuck at lunch with a recently graduated film student who drones on and on about the current state of cinema, made the new cut. Scary! There’s also the jazz trio sketch from the same episode entitled “Halloween Gig” which might also fit in nicely.

Of course, the more likely scenario is that Lorne Michaels feels SNL Presents: Halloween is perfect just the way it is and we’re getting the same Halloween special as last year. It’s filled with some of the funniest Halloween-themed sketches chosen from over 43 seasons. Some go way back to Saturday Night Live‘s beginnings with a sketch featuring Dan Aykroyd as sleazy toy manufacturer Irwin Mainway who’s being taken to task over his very dangerous kids costumes in an expose by interviewer Jane Curtin. There’s also some from the past decade including Bill Hader doing the best Vincent Price impression going today as the now late master of horror, hosting his own Halloween special. Then there’s the very recent SNL – Digital Shorts including the very popular short “A Girl’s Halloween” which shows what it’s like for a group of young women who head out into the night for a Halloween full of partying and great expectations only to have drunken reality set in. It features a brilliant comedic performance from SNL cast member Aidy Bryant. The other SNL – Digital Short we’ll see tonight is called “Kellywise” which stars cast member Kate McKinnon as White House adviser Kellyanne Conway terrorizing CNN’s Anderson Cooper in a parody of “Pennywise,” the evil clown from the horror hit movie, “It.” Because there’s nothing truly scarier than the current administration being in charge of a our country’s fate. And that’s just the first hour from tonight’s Saturday Night Live.

The last 30 minutes from SNL‘s allotted late night time slot goes to a cartoon special that debuted last year, The David S. Pumpkins Animated Halloween Special. The half hour cartoon was spun-off from a hilariously goofy character created by Tom Hanks on SNL in 2016 when he hosted the show during SNL – Season 42. The character originally appeared in a sketch simply titled “Haunted Elevator.” In the sketch, SNL cast member Beck Bennett and Kate McKinnon are a couple enjoying a Halloween haunted ride at a fair where each time the elevator door opens, a new scary scene appears. That is until it opens on David S. Pumpkins’ floor. That’s when the silliness of this sketch kicks in as we see Hanks in a black suit covered in jack-o-lanterns with a dark perm and a patch of white hair a la the Bride of Frankenstein. Pumpkins isn’t scary. He’s just dancing with two sassy sidekicks dressed like skeletons played by cast members Mikey Day and Bobby Moynihan. The couple is confused and wondering what exactly it is that they’re staring at. The sketch made no sense, but it was an instant hit with SNL fans and on social media. The David S. Pumpkins craze had Halloween stores selling out of his trademark suit which instantly became a must-have costume. And a Halloween classic was born.

Tonight’s David S. Pumpkins Animated Halloween Special features the voices of Tom Hanks, Mikey Day and Bobby Moynihan who all also appear in the flesh to introduce the special. Day and Moynihan also co-wrote the special with Saturday Night Live veteran writer Streeter Seidell. Emmy Award winning actor Peter Dinklage also is part of the voice cast. The special which is every much for adults as it could be for kids, focuses on a young brother and sister who learn the meaning of Halloween in spite of David S. Pumpkins trying to help them after he appears in his magic elevator along with his skeleton friends when the kids choose the worst looking pumpkin at a Halloween pumpkin farm.

You can see promos, both live-action and in cartoon form, for The David S. Pumpkins Animated Halloween Special below. Please note, these are the promos from when the special originally ran in 2017, so the date is wrong on the end graphics.

The Halloween comedy all starts tonight at 11:30pm on NBC with SNL Presents: Halloween followed by The David S. Pumpkins Animated Halloween Special starring Tom Hanks.

Next weekend, Saturday Night Live returns with a new live show on Saturday, November 3rd starring host Academy Award nominee Jonah Hill, who will be joining the SNL 5-Timers Club, plus musical guest Maggie Rogers.

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