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somekindofguy
Mar 9, 2011
Grimey Drawer
Welcome to the fourth season of FOX's (and apparently America's) favorite show. This season features sixteen masked contestants, with 46 Grammy nominations, 23 platinum records, 10 Hall of Fame appearances, one Olympic gold medalist, over 281 million records sold, appearances in over 5,475 episodes of television and 151 films, five Super Bowl appearances, four stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and one Time 100 honor.

What Is it?
Based on (copied from) the South Korean reality show King of Mask Singer, this singing competition is everything about the modern celebrity landscape and reality TV mashed together in a nightmarish pastiche featuring admittedly incredible costumes, synthesized voices, terrible puns, and brick stupid panelists. Sixteen public figures ("celebrities" doesn't really work here) are dressed in full garish costumes and face off against one another by singing song covers in their real voices. Before each song, they play a sizzle real of the singer offering (in a concealed voice) a short biography in order to give clues as to their identity.
The show airs Wednesday at 8PM ET on Fox.

Meet the Host
Nick Cannon, in different head dresses and hairstyles.

Meet the "Judges"
Robin Thicke: Songwriter, record producer, and noted domestic shitbag. He appears to be trying very hard to be The Serious One on the meaningless panel.
Jenny McCarthy: Yes, her. Everyone's favorite anti-vaxxer observes things around her and makes preposterous guesses. Yet somehow, I'm assuming through the magic of editing, she appears to pull a last-minute correct guess just before the unmasking.
Ken Jeong: Former MD and current prolific comedic actor. Gives up the veil of taking any of this remotely seriously almost immediately into the first episode. Did not correctly guess a single singer in the first season.
Nicole Scherzinger: Formerly of the Pussycat Dolls, Nicole is the other person seemingly making guesses in earnest. Constantly drunk.

Confirmed Guest Panelists for Season 4
TBA

Guest panelists from past seasons
Jamie Foxx
Keenan Thompson
J.B. Smoove
Anthony Anderson
Joel McHale (please come back)
T-Pain
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog

Why Should I Watch?
It's the closest thing we have to modern day water-cooler talk. Unlike singing reality shows of the past, you don't just get to argue with your acquaintacnes about who is more talented-- you also get to argue about clues, heights, and voices! Destroy your relationships and isolate your family members with your increasingly furious opinions of whether the Banana's voice is too high to be JJ Abrams! It's also so goddamned weird.

And it's fun to argue with people about your guesses. Last season, the Internet mostly figured out who everyone was after only a couple of appearances. By all accounts, they're trying to make it much more difficult this time around. Plus, this season is introducing voting from at-home fans versus a live audience, so expect there to be some tomfoolery in the results.

What happened in the past three seasons?
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3

Masked singers of the past have included Terry Bradshaw, Gladys Knight, LaToya Jackson, Tommy Chong, Seal (not dressed as a seal), Donny Osmond, Joey Fatone, Kelly Osbourne, Patti Labelle, Adrienne Bailon, Ninja, Dionne Warwick, Chaka Khan, Tony Hawk, Lil Wayne, Jesse McCartney and the past three winners, T-Pain as "The Monster", Wayne Brady as "The Fox", and Kandi Burruss as "The Night Angel".

What have we learned?
Time is cyclical, we're all going to die, and this show is all we have.

Oh you mean about the constestants?
The revealed singers have tended to be:
- active in the reality show community (e.g. Rumer Willis, Tori Spelling, Kandi Burruss)
- occasionally from FOX competitor networks (e.g. Drew Carey, Tom Bergeron, Ana Gasteyer)
- promoting a new show or album
- not currently prominent artists (it's not Lady Gaga or :boom: )

Who are this season's contestants?
Find out in the next post.

Big thanks to Hazo for providing the majority of this intro from the season 3 thread.

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somekindofguy
Mar 9, 2011
Grimey Drawer
Current Group: Final 3

The Contestants:

Baby Alien

The show's first puppet character.
Revealed as: Mark Sanchez

Seahorse

Revealed as: Tori Kelly

Serpent

Featuring a set of six animatronic tails
Revealed as: Dr. Elvis, the Singing Surgeon

Crocodile

Revealed as: TBA

Broccoli

Revealed as: Paul Anka

Gremlin

Revealed as: Mickey Rourke

Mushroom

Revealed as: TBA

Whatchamacallit

Revealed as: Lonzo Ball

Jellyfish

A costume leftover from last season, now seeing the light.
Revealed as: Chloe Kim

Lips

Shamelessly lifted from the second season of the French version of the show.
Revealed as: Wendy Williams

Squiggly Monster

Revealed as: Bob Saget

Snow Owls

Yep, a duo mask. Will compete and be unmasked as one.
Revealed as: Clint Black and Lisa Hartman Black

Popcorn

Revealed as: Taylor Dayne

Sun

Revealed as: TBA

Dragon

Revealed as: Busta Rhymes

Giraffe

Revealed as: Brian Austin Green

somekindofguy fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Dec 17, 2020

somekindofguy
Mar 9, 2011
Grimey Drawer
Show has started. Sun seems the front runner so far, though Popcorn might give her a run for her money.

Hazo
Dec 30, 2004

SCIENCE



Ja Rule would be funny because of Fyre Fest

Edit: thanks for picking up the thread somekindofguy. I didn’t intend on watching this season but oh well

Hazo fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Sep 24, 2020

somekindofguy
Mar 9, 2011
Grimey Drawer
No problem man. If it helps, this season is slated to be shorter than last season, with a triple elimination before the final. Why they didn't just stick with season 2's format is beyond me.

Nice to see Busta Rhymes again. And they did a song I liked too. Good night overall.

Also: if you want to see how other countries are doing The Masked Singer, the Australian version recently concluded their second season and put all the performances online. I'd call it a step up over the first season, even with the lack of an audience. Enjoy!

IcePhoenix
Sep 18, 2005

Take me to your Shida

somekindofguy posted:

Show has started. Sun seems the front runner so far, though Popcorn might give her a run for her money.

I didn't think Popcorn was very good at all :shrug:

This is probably wrong but my first guess for Sun is Emily Blunt. Don't really have a guess for the other three acts from tonight.

hamsystem
Nov 11, 2010

Fuzzy pickles!
I'm like 99% sure snow owls are Clint and Lisa Black. I don't know much of her stuff but I grew up in the south and his voice is instantly recognizable.

somekindofguy
Mar 9, 2011
Grimey Drawer
Group B is on now, and they have been teasing a ragequit or something like that.

Personally seems like Whatchamacallit might go home if this was normal.

EDIT: WELP. Gremlin goes home, and it's frigging Mickey Rourke.

somekindofguy fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Oct 1, 2020

Hazo
Dec 30, 2004

SCIENCE



Huh. That was weird.

But it was a good guess and Mickey Rourke is a legit insane person so he probably decided he had to go somewhere to do something crazy.

somekindofguy
Mar 9, 2011
Grimey Drawer
Tonight's episode didn't do much for me. The faffing about with the judges just felt a lot like filler, when we would have gotten a group performance by now...

Also, they are apparently doing a Super Six instead of a Super Nine, along with a triple elimination. Just feels rushed when they had a perfectly good 16 mask format in Season 2.

Fallen One
May 1, 2007

" Whoa! Death? He's come for me!... Death is sleeping too..."

somekindofguy posted:

Tonight's episode didn't do much for me. The faffing about with the judges just felt a lot like filler, when we would have gotten a group performance by now...

Also, they are apparently doing a Super Six instead of a Super Nine, along with a triple elimination. Just feels rushed when they had a perfectly good 16 mask format in Season 2.

Yeah, episode was pretty meh except for Sun. And here I thought Ken seemed very slightly less obnoxious this season, that didn't last long. I don't get why they went back to group A before introducing group C and I agree season two had the best format. I like seeing them competing in different groups, the same ones every time get stale especially if you don't like almost any of them (I didn't care for anyone in the third group of season 3).

Crusty Nutsack
Apr 21, 2005

SUCK LASER, COPPERS


I think this is new tonight? world series didn't need game 7

somekindofguy
Mar 9, 2011
Grimey Drawer

Busty Nutsack posted:

I think this is new tonight? world series didn't need game 7

Yep, we get the final five masks for the season tonight.

By the way, Ive been following some Masked Singer entries from around the world. Would anyone be interested in hearing about them and what they are about?

Crusty Nutsack
Apr 21, 2005

SUCK LASER, COPPERS


somekindofguy posted:

By the way, Ive been following some Masked Singer entries from around the world. Would anyone be interested in hearing about them and what they are about?

yes! :justpost:

somekindofguy
Mar 9, 2011
Grimey Drawer
Sorry for the lack of posting about other versions. I should have some time to start with that soon.

Anyway, Group C Playoffs tonight, and Wayne Brady is back as a guest judge!

Mustached5thGrader
Oct 1, 2011

My mother won't let me grow a goatee.
What if OJ was in the show
And he was a bronco lol

Faustian Bargain
Apr 12, 2014


The thing I can't get over this season is the obvious cuts to the stock crowd footage and injected audience noise.

somekindofguy
Mar 9, 2011
Grimey Drawer

Faustian Bargain posted:

The thing I can't get over this season is the obvious cuts to the stock crowd footage and injected audience noise.

Yeah, it's an unfortunate necessity, but makes the whole thing feel a bit hollow.

Anyway, as I said, here's a little update on the international versions of the show.

-In Germany, they are in the midst of their third season. This version of the show stands out as it incorporates live performances and live voting, culminating in a five-mask brawl at the end of the season. The voting does get wonky on occasion, but the best ones rise to the top in the end. Some of this season's performances and some of the previous two are available on Youtube.. Current favorite appears to be Skeleton, as demonstrated here.

-In Belgium, they recently wrapped their first season of the show with a mix of a live and virtual audience. All performances are on Youtube.. Queen basically knocks it out of the park with every performance, not surprising considering she is Eurovision winner Sandra Kim.

-In Australia, they wrapped their second season earlier this year. The first season performances are available on Youtube, along with all of the second season performances and unmaskings. I'd say the second season was a bump in quality over the first despite the Coronavirus leading to almost no live audience, as they had some powerhouse singers like Queen ( Kate-Miller Heidke) and Bushranger (Bonnie Anderson).

-In Mexico, they went a little bigger with 18 total masks this season. This leads to a couple of knockouts each episode, and it's hard to say who will win. This version is not available legally on Youtube, but the Instagram account has little digests of the performances and unmaskings.

-In France, they are running their second season, with a mix of French and English songs throughout. The performances are all available on their [url=https://www.tf1.fr/tf1/mask-singer] website free of charge, though you may need to turn off your adblocker. My personal favorite to win is Penguin, as they seem to handle the English and French songs both capably.

Those are the ones I follow closely anyway. The Thai and Philippine versions are also going on at the moment, as is the Romania version. Let me know if you were interested in hearing about others, and I'll see what I can dig up.

Anyway, as to the US version, tonight is the Group A finals. Three performances, group performance and a smackdown all rolled into one.

Owlspiracy
Nov 4, 2020


I don't know if anyone else watches this, but this is legitimately the funniest, most surreal show on TV because its now popular enough to attract very obvious top tier singers but not quite enough to make it a real competition. It's like watching LeBron James play basketball against a 14 year old but pretending its not LeBron James because he's wearing a mask that covers a third of his face.

I do look forward to the final between LeAnn Rimes and Tori Kelly

Fallen One
May 1, 2007

" Whoa! Death? He's come for me!... Death is sleeping too..."

Aruan posted:

I don't know if anyone else watches this, but this is legitimately the funniest, most surreal show on TV because its now popular enough to attract very obvious top tier singers but not quite enough to make it a real competition. It's like watching LeBron James play basketball against a 14 year old but pretending its not LeBron James because he's wearing a mask that covers a third of his face.

I do look forward to the final between LeAnn Rimes and Tori Kelly

Yeah, this season even more than the others it seems drop dead obvious who the final two will be.

somekindofguy
Mar 9, 2011
Grimey Drawer
Happy Thanksgiving folks. New episode is apparently tonight. Still feeling a bit blah from that Serpent reveal last week (such a boring choice!). But we will see how this week goes.

fartcx
Dec 29, 2002

never stop posting
Robin's Alan Thicke impression is on par with Paul F Tompkins'

somekindofguy
Mar 9, 2011
Grimey Drawer
Ugh, and apparently rather than have the entire group compete against each other, they are doing three head to heads against the three groups. Lame. I wanted more intergroup battles like last season.

This format has kind of sucked this season. So inconsistent and the corona has cut down the number of performances to below even season 1 levels.

EDIT: Though apparently Sun Vs Seahorse will not be happening. My condolences to her fans.

somekindofguy fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Dec 3, 2020

Owlspiracy
Nov 4, 2020


And the Sun will win, in... very not surprising news.

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somekindofguy
Mar 9, 2011
Grimey Drawer
Two hour finale tonight. Sun's to lose likely. But it will depend on song choice.

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