He Is NOT a Jack-O'-Lantern: Meet Ike Spivak, the Voice of Target's Lewis

This Halloween season, TikTok exploded when people discovered Lewis — an eight-foot-tall animatronic wizard with a pumpkin for a noggin — on display at Target, decked out in a torn cloak and spouting sassy sayings.

“I am NOT a jack-o'-lantern,” the robed pumpkin wizard declares proudly. “My name is Lewis.”

On TikTok, the hashtag #lewis has over 850 million views and counting.

The pumpkin wizard’s iconic voice was created right here in Denver by Ike Spivak, a Mile High City musician who graduated from the University of Denver and spent plenty of time at the Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts (CCJA) in high school.

“I scrolled through for a little while, and I was just laughing and super stoked and really surprised,” Spivak says of when he first discovered Lewis’s virality. “It was just super hilarious seeing all the different fan art and costume inspiration.”

Lewis inspired many costumes over Halloweekend this year and sent droves of people to Target to see the ghoulish creation in person. Some videos even showed lines of people waiting for their chance to “meet” the decoration.

Spivak’s first encounter with the trend was one where a TikTok creator uses the sound of Lewis’s voice to jump into an inflatable jack-o'-lantern costume complete with thigh-high heeled boots. “That was my first day seeing that all of this stuff had just blown up,” Spivak says.

The 26-year-old has played saxophone for most of his life, starting when he was nine years old. He went to Denver School of the Arts for middle school and his freshman year of high school before switching to Jefferson County Open School. Because the music program wasn't as strong there, he turned to CCJA.

Spivak has performed for years, including gigs while he attended the Lamont School of Music at DU. He’s part of musical acts crossing many genres, including the Gonzalo Teppa Quintet, Citizen Dan (a Steely Dan cover band), Pet Friendly Jazz Collective, Nostal-Jazz and Jesus Love Explosion.

“I like to be an open-minded guy, and having all the variety really keeps me from getting bored,” Spivak says. “If I only played jazz, then I would just get burnt out on that. Different genres are the spice of life, so I like to dabble.”

He’s always wanted music performance to be his full-time source of income, but getting there takes time. Currently, Spivak estimates about a third of his income is from performing; another portion is from teaching music lessons to children; the rest comes from creating audio to go with toys and merchandise — as he did for Lewis.

Spivak works for Pan Asian Creations, a Chinese toy company that contracts with businesses like Costco, Home Depot and Target for custom holiday items. Since 2020, he figures he’s probably voiced over 100 toys. Lewis, however, is the first one that has received this level of attention.

Spivak has audio production skills in his arsenal, so along with recording the voices themselves, he mixes them for variety and to fit each specific toy. Sometimes he is given more creative freedom to write his own lines; other times, the script is already set in stone by the time it gets to him.

For Lewis, he didn’t write anything, and there was actually a specific voice reference in mind for the character: Dr. Facilier, the villain in Disney’s The Princess and the Frog. Facilier was originally voiced by legendary voice actor Keith David, who is Black.

“I'm very white," Spivak jokes. "But I just did my best to do something inspired by him. I just try and put as much feeling as I can and also push myself to try and really put lots of energy into all of these scripts. … People just thought it was, like, so sassy — and it is pretty sassy.”

Along with the famous “My name is Lewis” line, the pumpkin wizard has other quips that have caused some people to dub him a "gay icon." According to TikTok user @hailey.noecker, “He’s so girly pop.”

“I’m so happy you could carve out some time to come out tonight,” Lewis says (emphasis on carve).

Despite being happy with the final product, Spivak didn’t ever expect it to go viral.

Needing a women's voice, he'd asked a friend to help him with another Target Halloween character. That friend is the one who originally clued him in to Lewis’s popularity. Hearing his voice ring out across Target has been “surreal," Spivak says.

“I went with my friends one time to Target, and they were just being so goofy,” he tells Westword. “They were talking really loudly about how it was my voice, and I was kind of a little embarrassed. I was like, ‘People are gonna hear you! Stop!’”

Spivak hopes that Lewis’s success might lead to future voice-acting opportunities, or more visibility for his musical work. He’s intimately familiar with the music scene, having played at many local venues. One of his favorites is the Broadway Roxy, at 554 South Broadway. He also enjoys the Black Buzzard at Oskar Blues, where he’s opening for Jade Oracle on December 1.

“Dazzle has really always been great for me,” he says of the jazz club now located in the Denver Performing Arts Complex.

Spivak has played at Number Thirty-Eight, which resumed outdoor live music this summer. He recently performed at the Mercury Cafe, and says he would love to eventually book shows at slightly bigger spaces, like the Bluebird.

The underground Denver music scene, however, will always be where Spivak came from.

He used to sneak into the Meadowlark Bar, at 2701 Larimer Street, when he was underage to play at its jazz jam sessions; he got away with it until his actual 21st birthday.

When he presented the bouncer with his real ID that night, the man didn’t believe it was actually his. “I've been through a bunch of hairstyles, so that might have made it a bit confusing,” Spivak admits, warning other underage jammers not to follow in his footsteps.

In the midst of Lewis’s success, Spivak is keeping up his music performance work, and recently redid his website to make the most of the moment. “I never would have thought this would happen," Spivak says. “I'm just glad it's not anything too embarrassing, because some people get famous for really weird stuff.”

If you want to meet the voice of Lewis, Spivak plays with the Pet Friendly Jazz Collective at Colorado Sake Co., 3559 Larimer Street, every Thursday evening.