The David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special

I can't understand how the major outlet reviews for this special were negative; this one is hilarious. I love David S. Pumpkins' dry humor, and his one-liners made me laugh out loud. One criticism was the "crude" animation. Yes, it has an old-school look, but personally I loved it because it reminded me of the Halloween specials I adored when I was younger (e.g., The Peanuts and Garfield).

I think there are two reasons why the reviews were negative. First, it originally aired during an SNL timeslot, and people were probably expecting a more adult-oriented special. (This is understandable but doesn't make it any less funny.) Second, I believe good dry humor is something that has become somewhat of a lost art. I think people want their humor to be more "in-your-face" which is an unfortunate result of today's society.

Not only did I love this special as an adult, when I told my seven-year-old son that he should watch it, he ended up watching it four times in two days. So the joy of David S. Pumpkins spans generations, man!

Saturday Night Live has been awful for several years now so it's no surprise that this special is not funny. If you are familiar with the Tom Hanks sketch, you know that it was a thin premise that should have been quickly forgotten. Sadly it wasn't and now you will see this every Halloween and ask why.

Silly, but if you like Halloween or SNL, not a waste of time by any means. It's quirky and inane, like the Addams Family. Not as classy or deep, but witty in a sort of hit and run Oscar Wilde kind of way. Halloween used to be simple and more fun than bloody or violent. It isn't the classic that The Great Pumpkin is, but it is sort of like the next best thing. There is nothing like Rocky Horror, but Hedwig is pretty cool if you want more of that kind of thing. Same with David S. Pumpkins. It is family friendly, for the most part, unless you are a Klansman.

I was not expecting this special. I was impressed, had a Dr. Seuss vibe to it with some fun humor. Not too childish and not too adult. Somewhere happily in the middle. I want to see more of this David Pumpkins guy. Hopefully next year he will return.

This just aired in what usually is the last half-hour of the 90-minute-show, "Saturday Night Live" but since that night was a Halloween-sketches compilation show with one of those sketches featuring the title character of this animated special played by Tom Hanks in that sketch and voiced by him here as well, "SNL" ran for an hour and five minutes instead. The cartoon was amusing if not hilarious and so was pretty entertaining for what it was. It certainly was a decent time-waster, that's for sure!