Since its anticipated premiere in 2019, The Masked Singer has continued to captivate audiences. Inspired by the smash hit South Korean collection, King of Mask Singer, the present launched American viewers to the distinctive mix of movie star thriller, dazzling performances and hilarious comedic panelists. As the present digs previous the sequins and feathers of its elaborate costumes for its twelfth season now airing on Fox, the actuality competitors continues to shock followers with recent expertise and sudden reveals. The collection has not solely survived on community TV, nevertheless it’s developed right into a cultural phenomenon — one which panelist, Ken Jeong is constantly in awe of. In an unique interview with Collider, Jeong, who has been on the present from the very begin, displays on the present because it enters its milestone season and divulges how its unpredictable nature retains viewers hooked.

“You couldn’t script the twist that happened on the show. It happens organically,” he explains, including how the collection captures the great thing about its unscripted, spontaneous moments in the most surprising methods. For Jeong, that authenticity, paired with the sheer pleasure of witnessing legendary voices carry out in secret, is why the present continues to thrive. His enthusiasm for the magic that unfolds week after week is contagious, and as he reveals, after 12 seasons, he’s nonetheless having as a lot enjoyable as ever.

The Unscripted Magic of Organic Twists Make ‘The Masked Singer’

“If you go with the flow, there is art in everything.”

One of The Masked Singer’s most important parts is its unpredictability, one thing Jeong deeply appreciates. The unscripted nature of actuality TV typically results in moments of pure magic, however a variety of it depends on its contestants who he asserts are the “magic” of the present. “It’s all about the contestants and the singing. Those are the stars of the show,” he explains. “There’s something wonderfully addictive about trying to have a guessing game of who’s under the mask. It’s such a simple concept. In fact, it’s beautiful. There are no stakes, there’s no cash and prizes in this — it’s just celebrities under a mask singing, and it’s so novel, and it’s so simple.”

Admitting how the construction is an “effective” one, Jeong provides when it’s finished proper, it’s a “beautiful” hour of tv that has “inherent twists and turns” that solely occur when it’s unscripted programming. “You couldn’t script the twist that happened on the show. It happens organically. It’s something that I’ve learned as a performer, not having done unscripted before, that if you go with the flow, there is art in everything.”

Stressing the “art” of unscripted tv, Jeong admits that since dabbling in each realms, he believes these experiences in unscripted have helped inform him in the scripted world. “Having come through those experiences and the fields of that, it’s interesting,” he says. “It makes you look at a script in a different way, too, of the twists and turns, and how you want, in a movie script, for it to be organic, and you want it to come wonderfully out of nowhere, which is what the unscripted world does so well.”

‘The Masked Singer’ Came at an Interesting Time

“I wanted to do things that were kind of different than what I was doing.”

Whether it’s a shocking reveal of a legendary performer or an emotional efficiency that tugs at one’s heartstrings, The Masked Singer thrives on its skill to shock. It’s this facet that Jeong admits is a real “gift that keeps on giving” to the viewers. “I don’t think any of us knew that very first season that we shot that it would be, I believe, the highest-rated episode of reality competition series in, like, eight or nine years. It was some amazing metric,” he says, evaluating it to the community’s former profitable collection American Idol. This shock victory has stored The Masked Singer not solely alive however thriving, as its distinctive format has turned it right into a beloved fan-favorite that units new requirements for the style.

Revealing how he’s at all times beloved the singing competitors and people much like it, The Masked Singer was additionally at a peculiar time in Jeong’s life, which he discloses got here proper after his fan-favorite sitcom, Dr. Ken was canceled after two seasons on ABC. “I remember getting that show… and not really knowing what I was doing,” he remembers. “It was in this kind of transition, almost like, as they say, between high school and college, sometimes students opt for a gap year. In 2018, when we shot The Masked Singer’s first season, I was doing stand-up, I had a Netflix special [Ken Jeong: You Complete Me, Ho], working on that, and then doing The Masked Singer so, I had more free time on my calendar, and I wanted to do things that were kind of different than what I was doing.”

He provides after having the expertise of a present together with his personal identify and a level, he questioned the place to go after this. “It was… I wouldn’t say an existential crisis, but it was an existential debate of, like, ‘Okay, what do I do? Where do I go?’ And I think the answer was just, ‘Have fun.’ Looking back, ‘Just have fun in whatever I’m doing.’ You see me on The Masked Singer, it’s in real-time, having a laugh. Basically, I have a job where I get paid to ad-lib and improvise stupid thoughts of mine for a living.”

We Have Ken Jeong’s Mom to Thank for ‘The Masked Singer’

Ken performs the “Homer Simpson” model of himself on the Fox competitors collection.

The Community actor provides being on The Masked Singer can also be the “longest” he’s ever finished a collection and continues to have a “blast” doing it. “I’m still genuinely laughing and having such a good time, I think, because I never thought in a million years I would be on a panel show ever,” he says. “It was not my goal. In my head, this is like a music appreciation class to me because I’ve heard some of the best singers of all time sing on the show, legends. There are just too many to name.”

With the present now having virtually 200 contestants on the present since its begin greater than 5 years in the past, he’s grateful to have heard “some of the best voices of all time” on the present. “Often you get moved to tears,” he humbly says, sharing how his ardour for music runs deep. For these curious, Jeong even took a jazz appreciation class whereas at Duke. “A lot of people don’t know that about me. I do have a background, as a kid — I’m not a professional musician by any stretch of the imagination — I played piano and guitar. Even to promote the first season of The Masked Singer, I went to Korea where The Masked Singer originated, and sang. I participated… as a kind of demo. I was a guest on the Korean version of The Masked Singer, and so I got a deeper appreciation early on of what it’s like to be a contestant and how stressful and grueling, yet exhilarating, it is to be under that mask and sing.”

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Sharing the way it’s his “mom’s favorite show” as his dad and mom watch a variety of Korean programming, he says when he was supplied the panelist position, it was his mom that he turned to for recommendation. “She really encouraged me to do the show because I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know. I’ve never done a panel show before,’” he says with the exception of 1 visitor spot on America’s Got Talent in 2018. “I think The Masked Singer producer saw me on that show, and then I got offered, and I was like, ‘Yeah! I had so much fun doing it.’” He goes on to share how his mother knew it could be a “game-changer” for him. “She actually said, ‘It will change your career for the good.’ And it did.”

Adding how she despatched him a bunch of YouTube hyperlinks to the Korean model, it was then that Jeong admitted he knew the right way to do it. “Then it was my idea to kind of play almost like the Homer Simpson of myself and just be confident yet so dumb,” he laughs. “If anything, I’ve taken that to the extreme now, where the audiences are booing my guesses, and I’m saying something like, ‘How dare you? I’m a doctor. I was in The Hangover! It’s Bjork — I know what I’m talking about,’ when it’s Patti LaBelle. So it’s like a nice sleight of hand and a little bit of performance art. It’s lovely. Now, quite frankly, it’s like second nature. I mean, [my co-panelist] Robin Thicke and I say, ‘We can do this in our sleep now.’ It’s just so much fun.”

The Masked Singer airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. EST on Fox and streams the subsequent day on Hulu in the U.S.

The Masked Singer: Celebrities compete in a singing competitors whereas sporting elaborate costumes and masks to hide their identities. A panel of judges and the viewers work collectively to guess the performers’ identities primarily based on their voices, performances, and given clues, with weekly eliminations revealing the masked movie star.

Release Date

January 2, 2019

Creator

Craig Plestis

Cast

Nick Cannon , robin thicke , Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg , Ken Jeong , Nicole Scherzinger , Rita Ora , Joel McHale , Niecy Nash-Betts , Tori Kelly , Leslie Jordan , T-Pain , Brian Austin Green , Mickey Rourke , Bret Michaels , Chloe Kim , Elvis Francois , Bob Saget

Main Genre

Reality

Distributor

Propagate Content, Fox Entertainment

Production Company

Endemol Shine North America, Fox Alternative Entertainment

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