Lady Gaga nearly played Mrs. David Pumpkins on “Saturday Night Live,” and it’s not too late to make this happen
Here’s a Little Monster of a Halloween surprise: Lady Gaga almost played David Pumpkins’ wife on Saturday Night Live.
Bobby Moynihan, Mikey Day, and Streeter Seidell spilled the fun fact (and so many others) to Vulture in an in-depth oral history to celebrate the one-year anniversary of what could be the greatest (and most ridiculous) Halloween sketch in the history of live late-night television.
Gaga unfortunately turned down the role of Mrs. David Pumpkins, but with October 31st inching closer and reboot fever all the rage, anybody else want to bet their Fun Size Snickers that David Pumpkins’ long-lost wife will make an appearance?
Gaga was the musical guest on that fateful show hosted by Hanks last October.
As Moynihan, Seidell, and Day explain in the article, the producers had approached the writers late in the week and suggested Gaga be added to the sketch.
With her flair for the dramatic, the move seemed logical. And according to Day, Gaga’s cameo was meant to be the big finale:
“She’s wearing a jacket with witches on it. You think she’s gonna say ‘Wanda Witches’ or something, but she goes, ‘I’m Mrs. David Pumpkins.’ Of course his wife would be weird.”
Gaga passed. She wanted to dedicate her energy to her musical numbers, which makes sense. The writers (and retroactively all of us) were understandably crushed.
Luckily, there was American Treasure Tom Hanks to save the day.
Hanks almost skipped out on the part, too, which we learned from Moynihan last month. The former SNL writer and cast member told Seth Meyers that Hanks didn’t really “get” David S. Pumpkins at the beginning, and had tried to push the character onto the following week’s host: Chris Hemsworth. Of course, we would have been all about seeing Thor rock that Party City pumpkin suit, but it wouldn’t have been the same.
Lucky for all of us, Hanks ended up owning the character, butt slaps and all — and the rest is Haunted Elevator history. Even if Mr. Pumpkins doesn’t make a Halloween comeback on SNL, we can all rest easy knowing the character will be getting his own standalone special on October 28th.
