The Masked Singer has taken the TV audience by storm. The ratings for the second season were as good as the first.
As a gag, Ellen DeGeneres began a bit on her TV show getting celebrities to dress in costume and dance, rather than sing. Once that happened, a Fox executive started making phone calls.
“The day after it aired [on ‘Ellen’] was the day I phoned up that production company — January of last year, almost a year ago,” he told Variety.
Now Fox announces that it will in fact become a series. The announcement was just made at the Television Critics Assn. press tour, involves celeb contestants performing “unique dances, while covered from head-to-toe in elaborate costumes and face masks, leaving audiences to guess their identities.”
While the entire format hasn’t been fully fleshed out yet, some ideas are being bounced around.
“Obviously the difference in the format is the fact that you don’t hear someone’s voice, yet you still have to guess, so we need to work out ways to help the viewer guess people in a slightly different way,” said Wade. “It doesn’t have to be a solo dance. It could be a group dance or dances with another person who doesn’t have a mask on, so you can have partners as well, which would give you the ability to have a variety of different dances. I think it’s a question of how you can get the clues out.”
Because it's going to be tough to identify a celebrity only by dance moves one element from “Masked Singer” is definitely staying intact: hearing the contestant’s voice.
One person who appeared with Ellen in her segment was Howie Mandel, dressed as a dog. He said the mask made it difficult to breathe.