My History With The Masked Singer

As you can all tell, The Masked Singer is my favorite show that is currently on. However, the way I got to this point has been fascinating, as well as how I stopped liking the show, and then started liking it again. So today, I am going to share with you all my history with the show, and why I ultimately think it’s a great show.

The show first premiered in January 2019. I did not watch the first season as it was airing, as I thought that it was the most bizarre concept for a TV show. I learned about what was happening on the show through the internet, and I was fascinated by the celebrities that were appearing on it. I thought it was cool that the show had someone as iconic as Tommy Chong as a contestant in its first season, and I also found it interesting to see all the guesses for the remaining contestants that were on the internet. I was even more amazed to find out that all these guesses were correct and impressed by who some of them were. I thought it was cool that they had celebrities I was already familiar with like Joey Fatone and Donny Osmond, but what I found to be very cool was that the winner of the first season was T-Pain, as I felt that he was one of the biggest artists at the time, which made me impressed by the type of celebrities the show could get. 

When the second season premiered in September of that same year, I started off by not watching it and instead going to the internet to see who was unmasked and who popular guesses were for the remaining contestants. The first few names that I saw for who was unmasked I felt were the types of celebrities I could see doing a show like this, which were Johnny Weir, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, and Laila Ali. When the third episode of the season aired, I made the decision to watch it. I was curious to find out who they had as contestants in the group, but I kept on insisting that I was not watching it because I thought it was a good show. At the end of the episode, The Eagle was unmasked and revealed to be Dr. Drew Pinsky, which I found to be a disappointing reveal at the time, and from there I decided that I wouldn’t watch the show again. However, the following week, I chose to watch it again, maybe it was because I was curious as to who was on the show, or I wanted to how bad I thought it would get. Whatever the reason, I watched it again, and even found myself getting upset when the World Series delayed new episodes by a few weeks. From there, I was watching all the new episodes when they were airing, though I didn’t know the reason why. I kept thinking to myself that it was not a good show, though I was starting to believe that statement less, as I was starting to enjoy it quite a bit. While my parents were both still convinced that the show was not good, something happened near the end of the season that I never thought would happen. During one episode, my dad was just sitting in the room while I was watching the show, and then he heard The Rottweiler singing “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi. It was at that moment that he realized what was great about the show, which is that he was listening to a great performance from an amazing singer, and he didn’t have to concern himself with who it was. I agree with him because it’s nice to hear an amazing performance and not need to have any prior knowledge about who you are listening to.

In the seasons that followed, we continued to like the show even more, and my mom also came around, saying that the performance of “When the Party’s Over” from Season 4 by The Sun was one of her favorites of the entire show. It felt like the seasons were all building off each other, with each one being better than the last, and I felt comfortable saying that The Masked Singer was my favorite show, with Season 6 being my favorite season at that point in time. 

When it was time for Season 7 to premiere, I was sure that it was going to be another great season. When the first trailer for it dropped, I thought it looked okay, but I was confused by the “Good, The Bad, And the Cuddly” theming that they were building the whole season around. A few days after the trailer was released, a news story came out, which was that Ken and Robin walked off after Rudy Giuliani was unmasked as a contestant. I was horrified that they thought it was a good idea to put him on the show as a contestant, and it immediately changed my opinion on the show to negative. I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to watch the season, but as my dad said, there would be several other contestants that season that would make up for it, and for a while I agreed with him. However, as we got closer to the premiere, we knew very little information about the contestants, the costumes were all a step down visually with the new costume designer, and the accolades among all the contestants was the smallest it has ever been. When it was time for the premiere, I watched it and was saying that I was enjoying it at first, but I knew that I didn’t believe it, and I couldn’t figure out why. Halfway through the episode, I said to my dad that I wasn’t enjoying the episode, and he agreed with me, because in the first episode, we had seen the head of one of the costumes fall off in a scene that looked staged, a contestant start coughing out of nowhere in a scene that could have easily been cut out, a disappointing first reveal for the season, and worst of all, performances that were obviously from non-professional singers because of how boring they were, and also terrible song choices. I kept watching the season, but it didn’t get any better, it only stayed at the same quality with performances and singers, and the never-ending talk of Team Good, Team Bad, and Team Cuddly. As we got further into the season, I decided that I was going to watch the whole season so that I could be done with the show for good, because with how the season was going, it only made sense for them to cancel the show. During this time, I also found myself questioning why I even liked the show in the first place, as my dad was describing the show as a “clown show,” as an insult, and I agreed with him because of how off the rails the show had gone at this point in time. 

When they announced that there was going to be an eighth season just before Season 7 had ended, I was shocked that they even felt they deserved it. I also made the early decision to not watch the season, as I was positive that it was going to be just as bad if not worse than Season 7. When the first trailer for Season 8 dropped, I decided to watch it because I was curious to see what it was like, and what I saw surprised me, because it looked promising, and my dad agreed. With every trailer that was released, the season kept showing that it had potential to be good or even great. A few days before the season premiered, the first performance of the season was released, and me and my dad were both hopeful that we were in for a great season, and my dad has said that the contestant in the performance, Amber Riley, saved the show. This season and the following seasons have also made me love the show again, and now my dad calling the show a “clown show” has a more positive connotation. It’s a clown show because it has celebrities dressed in unique costumes singing songs, but that’s a good thing because even though it seems bizarre, everybody still sings their hearts out and gives amazing performances and has fun.

The reason why I still enjoy the show to this day is because there are still so many amazing performances from a variety of performers, and all we have to do is listen to them and not have any knowledge about who is singing. It’s also great finding out how great some celebrities are at singing, and seeing how much fun each celebrity had.

I hope you all enjoyed this blog post about my history with the show, and I’ll see you all soon with another one!