Unmasking The Masked Singer

Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, you're so over The Voice. It's not all that. Not what it used to be, anyway.

Maybe it was jazzy once, in the beginning, when everything seemed fresh and new. Now, though, The Voice feels like, if not a broken record exactly, a little overfamiliar.

Yes, as talent competitions go, The Voice still registers at the high end of the TV vocal register. Most of the singers are quite good, for what they are — though, if pressed, you may find it hard to name a single winner off the top of your head.

Getting real: The Voice was always about the so-called coaches, anyway. It’s not whether Singer A can sing better than Singer B but whether Singer A’s coach Gwen Stefani can register her first win at the expense of Singer B’s coach Blake Shelton.(Spoiler alert: In December, Stefani did just that. Do you remember who actually won, though? Carter Rubin. Now you know.)

Somewhere along the way — The Voice has gone 19 seasons now and counting — it lost its mojo. The curiosity factor is still there, sure, but after so many spins at the jukebox the glory chords have a ring of sameness to them. What to do?

Enter South Korea. Let’s hear it for South Korea!

South Korea, which is like North Korea only more politically stable, more economically sound, more skilled, more developed, better educated and better all around, spawned one of those wacky Asian game shows the Japanese usually excel at — but not this time.

Masked Singer is an international music-game-show franchise that cued its first notes as The King of Mask Singer, from Korea’s Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation.

Let’s give credit where credit’s due: The King of Mask Singer was the creative brainchild of Korean impresario Seo Chang-man, with a little help from his friends Noh Si-yong, Kim Sung-joo, Lee Won-joon, Park Won-woo, Ahn Young-ran, Kim Hyo-jeong and several others. Now you know.

The King of Mask Singer bowed in Korea in April, 2015 but it wasn’t until January, 2019 that its English language spin-off The Masked Singer invaded America.

The Masked Singer is fun! It doesn’t even pretend to be anything else. Not like The Voice, which often takes itself waaay too seriously.

The idea is that celebrities — many of them B-list or even C-list, but why spoil the beauty of a thing with mere details? — perform songs while hiddenbehind head-to-toe costumes and over-the-top face masks to conceal their true identities. Social distancing!

Work with me here, people.

Panelists Ken Jeong, Nicole Scherzinger, Robin Thicke and Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg try to guess the singers’ identities, by listyentng to the voices and deciphering clues handed to them throughout the season.

The audience at home votes for their favorite singer after everyone has performed; the singer with the least number of votes takes off his/her mask at the end of the show each week and reveals his/her identity for the world to see.

Oh, the humanity!

The costumes are wacky in a grand, in-your-face way — that’s half the fun — and they’re nothing you’ll see in any fashion show this side of Borat’s home country.

Don’t knock it: The Masked Singer’s haute couture outfits are designed so that the celebrity singers can sing clearly, and have impressed fashionistas on the inside, so much so that The Masked Singer's costumer designers have won a number of costuming awards, including a Creative Arts Emmy.

You just know a show has arrived when it starts winning Emm— oh, who am I kidding?

Nobody cares about Emmys, least of all the fanboys and fangirls who just want a good time. And The Masked Singer delivers all that and more.

The world has seen better times. One-time Reno 911 scene-stealer Niecy Nash — Deputy Raineesha! How you been, babe? — takes over from Nick Cannon as the show’s temporary, fill-in host and emcee when Masked Singer returns to US television this Wednesday, March 11, on the Fox network, because — wait for it — Cannon is recovering from a bout of Covid-19.

Is there nothing this grubby, vile virus hasn’t tried to ruin? The world needs a respite. We could all use a respite.

One way to look at Masked Singer is that it’s getting the message out to wear a mask, but of the millions of viewers who tune in to watch each week I can probably count on one hand those who tune in to get the messaging about masks during a pandemic. Am I right?

Work with me here, people.

Then there’s the fake audience, clips of audiences from other shows laughing and clapping to the cavalcade of circus acts. The Masked Singer is a freak show, but it’s an enjoyable freak show. Laugh, damn you!

Everyone knows what’s going on in the world right now.

We miss those big, communal events that used to fill an indoor sports arena, or an outdoor festival stage for that matter.

Faking an adoring audience is not only harmless: We need it right now.

Reviving and reliving the joy and excitement of past shows makes it fun for everyone at home. The Masked Singer gives us something to celebrate — good times, and (semi)good music. Who cares if the audience is virtual?

The thing about clips of a virtual audience laughing, clapping and grooving along to the insanity is that it sure beats those lame cardboard cutouts the major pro-sports leagues have tapped, to make it look as if the stadiums are full. (Spoiler alert: They aren't.)

Past celebrity casts have included, last season, LeAnn Rimes (The Sun), Nick Carter (The Crocodile), Paul Anka (The Broccoli), Clint Black and Lisa Hartman Black (The Snow Owls), Bob Saget (The Squiggly Monster), Busta Rhymes (The Dragon) and, in one of those ‘Wait-what-did-I-just-see-that’ moments, Mickey Rourke (The Gremlin).

Rourke lost it, for lack of a better way of putting it, in the middle of a taping. Midway through his performance he tore off his mask and said he was done with the show. Oh, the drama! The humanity!

The producers, God bless 'em, decided to keep that in the version that made it to air, no doubt thinking: Hey, it’s Mickey Rourke. Roll with it.

The season before that, in year 3, it was all about Bow Wow (The Frog), Bret Michaels (The Banana), Sarah Palin (The Bear, rapping to the rhymes of Baby Got Back) and one-time child prodigy and America’s Got Talent runner-up Jackie Evancho (The Kitty), who — and I am not making this up — more than a few people thought was actually Taylor Swift.

So, come Wednesday, cue the Giant Yang Yang and the Creeping Blorch. Just a guess now, but I don’t think Taylor Swift will appear this time. Either.

You just know that if Taylor Swift ever does agree to do The Masked Singer, the end times are near. It’ll still be a fun show, though.