Why it’s hard to look away from Fox’s surprise hit ‘The Masked Singer’
It’s unlikely that anyone has ever wished to see Tommy Chong standing in front of an audience belting a lukewarm version of “I Will Survive” while decked out head-to-toe in a pineapple costume with washboard abs.
And yet there he was on a recent episode of Fox’s surprise hit “The Masked Singer,” doing his best Gloria Gaynor as a former Pussycat Doll, the “Blurred Lines” guy, Ken Jeong and Jenny McCarthy looked on.
You’ll probably need to read the description of “The Masked Singer” no fewer than three times to convince yourself it’s not just a blurb someone jotted down on their phone’s Notes app during an acid trip.
Twelve celebrities who may or may not be actual singers dress up in elaborate costumes that conceal their identity, and perform before an audience and a panel of “pop culture detectives” who try to guess who they are. Each week, the weakest performer is unmasked.
So far, Mr. Chong and NFL star Antonio Brown have been deemed the poorest performers and have had to reveal their faces, while characters such as the raven, the alien, the rabbit and the bee lived to see another day of competition.
It’s a weird show made weirder by the fact that there doesn’t actually appear to be anything at stake.
On “American Idol,” the stars compete to win a record deal. On “America’s Got Talent,” the winner walks away with $1 million.
On “The Masked Singer” — which airs Wednesday nights on Fox — the winner gets … additional time to keep their identity hidden? Bragging rights?
A competition based solely on pride is an odd concept, but there’s something to be said for celebrities making fools of themselves as the absurdity and elaborateness of the costumes certainly allow.
And so far it’s paying off — the Jan. 2 premiere brought in 9.4 million viewers, TV’s highest-rated unscripted premiere in seven years, according to TVLine.
We’re used to famous people looking beautiful and Instagram-ready at all times, not flitting around in a futuristic poodle outfit shamelessly singing Pat Benatar.
But for the hour spent watching the show, I, the former child who would occasionally read the last page of a book first, NEED to know and care about nothing else on this Earth other than who is in the poodle costume.
Sharing in the desire to solve the puzzle is the panel of judges, referred to on the show as pop culture detectives: Robin Thicke, Nicole Scherzinger, Jenny McCarthy and Ken Jeong.
For reasons unknown, the four are shockingly desperate to solve the mysteries of just who is performing in front of them.
Prior to each performance, the anonymous celebrity offers clues as to who they really are, anything from a reference to a city, to a mention of what skill made them famous.
As annoying as the panel is (save for Mr. Jeong, who is funny), watching them make guesses is hilarious.
When Mr. Chong is performing as a pineapple, Ms. Scherzinger is dead-set on believing that the man beneath the mask is “definitely a professional singer.”
Huh? The man has less stage presence than an actual pineapple — definitely not qualities to be found in someone who does this for a living. Another judge suggests Jimmy Buffet … would actual professional singer Jimmy Buffet be this offkey? No, he would not!
Ms. Scherzinger’s final guess is Kid Rock, which is so off-base it elicits actual laughter from this viewer.
The same goes for when she guesses 81-year-old Jane Fonda is belting “Heartbreaker” by Pat Benatar, or when Ms. McCarthy suggests it’s Richard Simmons, the man who has not made a public appearance in years, but, yeah sure, would come on this silly Fox show.
Despite the aimlessness of “The Masked Singer,” there’s something enthrallingly watchable about a singing competition that doesn’t actually care about the quality of the singing.
It’s nice to know that Mr. Chong can be eliminated and it won’t send his world crashing down, since singing is not the only thing he’s cared about his whole life, and he has not just had his dreams crushed, as eliminations tend to do on shows such as “Idol.”
It’s nice to watch celebrities make fools of themselves for the sake of entertainment, and it’s nice to see judges be complimentary when they don’t necessarily have to be because there is nothing at stake.
Will “The Masked Singer” ever be a critical darling? No. But there are worse ways to spend an hour. And if the rabbit isn’t Joey Fatone from *NSYNC I just might riot.