Wednesday marked the return of one of the more bizarre reality competitions to hit American television, and that’s saying a lot. The masked singer Season Five started with guest host Niecy Nash replaces COVID-positive Nick Cannon, a secret rooster hiding clues from the jury, and a crop of new masked crooners.
If you’re not familiar with the Fox series premise, it’s basically a singing competition where celebrities (or ‘celebrities’) sing elaborate karaoke routines, while judges Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy, Nicole Scherzinger, and Robin Thicke search video clue packages for hints of who might be under the masks.
Wednesday’s premiere featured performances from five of the season’s ten contestants: Raccoon, Snail, Seashell, Russian Doll, and Robpine (that’s a robotic porcupine, in case it wasn’t clear). Guesses for who was under the masks on Wednesday ranged from Jamie Foxx to Jessica Simpson to Ginuwine. But only the singer with the lowest number of votes from the judges and home audience (in this case, a limited number of people who supposedly watched live feeds when the show was taped weeks ago, we guess?) Is revealed at the end of the episode and this week it was …
[Spoiler ahead.]
Snail. Among the judges ‘estimates for performing Hall & Oats’ “Make My Dreams” with a stuffed country twang were Adam Carolla, Billy Crystal and Jay Leno. But when the snail’s top hat was removed, there was no celebrity head in sight. Instead, it was Kermit the Frog who came out of the snail shell. Yes that’s right. While the judges guessed real human beings as bastards, it has always been a Muppet. Or at least puppeteer Matt Vogel.
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Based on the costumes, it’s clear that there are real people behind at least some of the votes this season, but it’s still unclear if the Russian doll is one person, two people, a whole family of people? Or, if tonight was any indication, maybe it’s just the whole tree full of Keebler elves.