With Halloween happening this coming Thursday, the latest episode of Saturday Night Live had to squeeze in at least some “spooky” content for audiences. Hence “Spooky Song,” a delightfully weird and surreal sketch about a bunch of singing spirits whose songs detail the nature of their respective ends to a couple of unsuspecting teenagers. As goofy as this concept may seem, however, the skit’s many resemblances to 2016’s “Haunted Elevator” gag with guest host Tom Hanks as David S. Pumpkins cannot be denied.
Instead of a ridiculous, pumpkins-covered suit and Hanks’s smiling face, though, “Spooky Song” gets Chance the Rapper’s unnamed ghost. And unlike his fellow spirits — played by cast members Mikey Day, Kenan Thompson, and Aidy Bryant — the guest host’s delightfully awkward character just can’t bring himself to sing about how he died. “We can skip me,” he declares. “Happy Halloween!”
When everyone else is done singing, though, his efforts to move on are promptly ignored. “It’s the diddy of the damned,” says Thompson’s character. “All four of us have a tale to tell about our deaths before we can go back to our graves. That’s how it works. So, come on!” Unsurprisingly, though, Chance’s spirit really doesn’t want to participate. “Here’s the thing. My death was a real ‘you had to be there’ situation. Needs a lot of context,” he says. “I don’t want to waste everybody’s time.” But that doesn’t work and he’s forced to sing anyways — and it’s wonderfully silly.
There’s no need to spoil all of “Spooky Song” here because writing it all out couldn’t possibly do the sketch justice. Even so, let’s just say it involves a small child’s accident with a nine-volt battery and a Benjamin Franklin-esque exploration of electricity’s awesome power. “It’s gonna sound way worse than it actually is,” Chance warns everybody.
