What is Target trying to tell us with Lewis, the giant pumpkin ghoul?
At the heart of every good Halloween story is a mystery. Will the Great Pumpkin ever come? What are Beetlejuice’s intentions? Is “The Nightmare Before Christmas” a Halloween movie? But this year, October’s greatest mystery comes not from our screens but from a national retailer.
Lewis. What is he, really? He’s a giant piece of Halloween decor, yet he seems to be so much more. (Or is he really less?) At a towering 8 feet tall and shrouded in a tattered black robe, he has a pumpkin face and a toothy smile. He’s the latest oversize outdoor Halloween decoration to take the internet by storm during spooky season, but unlike his brethren — see Home Depot’s taller-than-God skeleton or weirdly ripped werewolf — there’s something vampier about Lewis. Something campier. Could it be a hint of actual personality?
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A few weeks ago, Sydney Rexford was shopping for discounted Halloween candy with her mom at her local Target in South Lebanon, Ohio, when she heard a voice echoing throughout the aisles. The voice wasn’t haunting or creepy, nor did it resemble anything you might find in a Spirit Halloween store. The voice was … sassy.
“I am not a jack-o’-lantern,” Lewis bellowed. “My name.” He paused ever so briefly, as if readying to say something spooky. “Is Lewis.”
End of carouselLewis. Okay. Not a jack-o’-lantern. Got it.
Rexford stopped short of buying her own Lewis because of the $180 price tag, but decided it was the “funniest thing ever.” She thought other people might want to meet Lewis, too. Her TikTok video featuring him has nearly 9 million views, and hundreds more have circulated on the app since.
“It reminds me of Vine,” Rexford says, recalling the defunct early-2010s social media app featuring short, looping videos. “They don’t make sense, but they’re funny. If this was the Vine era, it’d 100 percent be a Vine.”
He has other sayings, including, “Happy Halloween, my little ghoul,” and, “I’m so happy you could carve out some time to come out tonight.”
But what is his backstory? What makes him not a jack-o’-lantern?
Rexford has a simple answer: “His legs and arms.”
Lydia Deavel, a senior at the University of Northwestern in Minnesota, erupted into laughter with her roommate when she saw a video of Lewis on her feed. They went hunting for a version of their own the next day. In the video that followed, she’s worshiping at the feet (does he have feet?) of Lewis like a peasant before a king.
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Deavel has a theory as to why Lewis is not a jack-o’-lantern: “It’s a play on words,” she says. “Like, he’s not Jack. He’s Lewis.”
Share this articleShareStill, Deavel says, she’d like to hear about the lore of Lewis from Target itself. Where did the idea come from? What were those pitch meetings like? Who voiced Lewis?
A Target communications specialist was not terribly communicative. She brushed off repeated requests for more information, including sales figures.
But then Target released a statement that included quotes from Hyde & Eek! Boutique, a Target-owned Halloween brand.
“We really found magic this year,” says Target’s internal product design team, which is in charge of coming up with characters such as Lewis the “ghoul,” defined by Merriam-Webster as “a legendary evil being that robs graves and feeds on corpses.” (Though that seems not very Lewis-like.) Anyway, the design team continues: “When we were gathering bits of this and that, a charismatic pumpkin came to life. We greeted the jack-o’-lantern and he was quick to let us know his name was not Jack, but actually Lewis. We knew a star was born.”
Lewis has taken on a life of his own, beyond the few lines the retailer programmed into him. He’s been the subject of fan art. He’s been baked as a cake. He’s been parodied in cosplay. He’s been posted by the Smashing Pumpkins and YouTuber Trisha Paytas. And, of course, he’s been married off to the Home Depot skeleton.
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“I fear even a slight breeze,” says one review online. Another mentions that, “on a windy day when his sash is blowing in the breeze it triggers his sensor. He jabbers all day & night like a 4 yo that’s had skittles and soda.”
“We took him in and he is a blast,” says another review. “Always down for a spooky movie, serving up some hot tea or sticking up for the little guys. [Lewis] slays like the queen (or king) they are meant to be.”
And while we’re on the topic of slaying, it should be noted that many of his biggest fans — TikTokers and commenters alike — agree that Lewis, like the Babadook of yore, is something special to the queer community. His pizzazz-filled phrases certainly could fit on a panel of RuPaul’s judges.
“It’s definitely the representation that I think we need in Halloween decor,” says Hillary Mace, who purchased her own Lewis after her girlfriend introduced them via TikTok. “It’s the amount of sass and attitude.”
Where Home Depot’s giant skeleton is imposing, its arms stretching toward the heavens, Lewis is just … Lewis. A friendly face with a cheeky catchphrase. Lewis feels like a step toward something cheesier, less majestic and more camp, and back toward the (relatively) uncomplicated Vine era.
So maybe the mystery of Lewis can (or should) remain unsolved. Maybe that’s what makes him so enticing in the first place.
“When he is ready to tell his story, we will all be here to listen,” Mace says. “For right now, he’s a man of few words, but what he has to say is sufficient. We just need to listen.”
correction
A previous version of this article incorrectly reported how tall Lewis is. The Halloween decoration is eight feet tall. The article has been corrected.
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