“
The Masked Dancer” sounds like a good idea on paper: Take megahit “
The Masked Singer,”
but the disguised celebrities get their groove — instead of their croon
— on. But while Fox and executive producer Craig Plestis kicked around
the idea of a spin-off in the wake of “Masked Singer’s” boffo ratings,
they still weren’t sure it would work. Photo
Courtesy of Fox
On “The Masked Singer,” panelists and viewers try to guess who’s
under the costume via clues — but it’s ultimately their singing voices
that help give it away or not. A dance show would take away that key
component — how could anyone even try to make a guess?
Enter “The Ellen DeGeneres
Show,” which had also capitalized on the popularity of “Masked Singer”
to create its own “Masked Dancer” stunt. After those segments became
viral hits and the “Masked Singer” team saw how well they played, Fox
alternative entertainment and specials president Rob Wade said he was
finally convinced.
“The segments that Ellen had done was really the thing that persuaded
me to do it,” he said. “You saw from the way that [‘Ellen’ DJ Stephen
‘Twitch’ Boss] and her kind of figured out who people were underneath
these costumes that we could actually build a proper format around it.”
That’s why DeGeneres was also recruited to serve an executive
producer on “The Masked Dancer,” which premieres on Fox this Sunday
night, immediately following the NFL. Craig Robinson hosts “The Masked
Dancer,” which features panelists Paula Abdul, Brian Austin Green, Ashley Tisdale and “Singer’s” Ken Jeong.
Plestis noted how DeGeneres and Twitch were able to guess some of the
people from a Q&A that they did with the disguised celebrities. “It
was a little bit of a proof of concept for us,” he said. “Then we went
into development mode. What would make ‘Dancer’ stand out and be
different than ‘Singer’?”
That led to some of the differences between the two “Masked” shows.
On “Dancer,” clue packages are more story-oriented, with more in-depth,
detailed hints. And the producers also added a feature they call “Word
Up,” in which the contestant says one word, in their own voice. That
word is also a major clue to their identity.
“We were really debating it, is this too big of a clue?” Plestis
said. “Once you hear someone’s voice, you kind of really narrow it down.
It turned out to be a great element in the show. Some of [the
panelists] picked up on a lot of facts, old, young, whatever it might
be. But also through some interesting misdirects that took them into
other directions.”
Plestis said he believed “Masked Dancer” actually became an easier
show for the panelists to guess the celebrity’s identity. “Once you’re
observant it just starts clicking in,” he said. Plestis points
especially to Abdul, the former “American Idol” judge whose choreography
background made her the show’s “secret weapon.”
“She just might be too good at this game, which was fun for her to
start looking at the way they walked out on the stage or dancing,” he
said. “She started going in into the computer in her head, going It
could be x, y or z.”
Among other differences between “Masked Singer” and “Masked Dancer,”
the costumes aren’t as gigantic and inflexible on “Dancer” as they might
be on “Singer.”
“If you need to do a jump, it can survive without the mask falling
off. If you need to take someone above your head, you can do it,”
Plestis said.
Even the stage is a bit different from “Singer”: “The set had to be
changed because you can’t dance on an egg-shaped set,” Wade said. “And
you have to change the lighting configuration. You have to make it look
different. Because you don’t want it to be identical. A lot of work goes
into that and designing that. It looks similar but it’s actually very
different once you actually have to take the time to make the creative
changes.”
As for the panelists, besides bringing her dance experience to the
show, Abdul also returns to Fox after her successful 2000s run as a
judge on “American Idol” (and later, on “The X-Factor”).
“Obviously, it took a minute to sort of talk that this isn’t a
judging show, it’s now about how good or bad people are,” Wade said.
“They’re panelists, they’re not judges. There’s commentary on
performance but you’re not judging the dance. And she’s great. She’s
great at guessing, she’s very funny she’s fantastic chemistry with the
rest of the panel.”
Green was cast partly because of his experience performing on “The
Masked Singer,” as Season 4’s Giraffe. Tisdale brought a performing
background and a young perspective to the show, while Jeong remains
Fox’s reality TV good luck charm.
“Ken’s getting better at the game,” Plestis said. “Everyone does play
the game for real. He’s getting the groove of it now.” Added Wade: “We
love Ken and we wanted to have someone from the ‘Masked’ franchise on
there because he’s almost like a teacher. He knows how the judging
works, so he is incredibly useful from just a teaching point of view for
others.”
As for Robinson, the network had been in talks with the comedian for
years on a wide variety of projects. “He’s never done this type of
competition show, so he just brings a fresh flavor to ‘Dancer,'” Plestis
said.
In casting “Masked Dancer,” the show went back to pitch celebrities
who had passed on “Singer” but had previously said they’d be open to a
dance show.
“There are certain people that want to dance, and there are other
persons who want to sing,” Plestis said. “We were approached by many
people as well, but also we were looking for individuals who you didn’t
know who could dance. That it was either their secret weapon or hobby.
And I think we were very successful in uncovering a pretty good
selection of celebrities.”
The show touts a cast of 10 celebrities that have “amassed more than
38 million albums sold worldwide, 20 Emmy Award wins, 20 Grammy Award
nominations, 10 World Dancing titles, five New York Times Best-Selling
Author titles, four Olympic gold medals and three Broadway show
appearances.”
“It’s not easy overall for the celebrities, singing has its own
weight but dancing, you’re inside of a costume doing multiple dance
routines and a lot of intricate dance routines as well, and telling
stories with dance,” Plestis said. “There’s a lot of sweat equity our
celebrities put into the show.”
For the producers, there was also the added stress of creating and
launching a new competition in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“With ‘Masked Singer,’ for instance, it was really hard to make in
COVID but we knew what the show was, we just had to figure out how to
make that show in COVID,” Wade said. “If you’re making a new show, you
don’t even know what show you’re making. And you have to make it in
COVID. You’re trying to figure out this format in a time when no one can
see each other. Training for a dance competition is really difficult
when you can obviously be too close to people.”
The pandemic also wound up limiting the involvement of DeGeneres:
“The intention was to be a lot more but obviously with COVID happening,
it just became an impossibility,” Wade said. “She’s been very helpful
obviously with the promotion of the show and very engaged in that. We
were going to do a lot with that but unfortunately, obviously she
contracted COVID. So in the last few weeks that meant a few things we
had planned couldn’t be done. She’s been really supportive and her team
have really supported the show.”
Like Season 4 of “The Masked Singer,” the first season of “Masked
Dancer” will rely on archived audience reaction shots as well as
augmented reality to give the feel of a crowd in the studio.
“These shows, you need audience, you need reaction shots.” Wade said.
“You need that to get the story told properly. And it’s still not as
good as having them there. The big problem is that there’s a different
level of performance from every one — host, panelists, dancers, or
singers. When they’re in front of 200-300 screaming people, it’s a very
different energy.”
Fox and Plestis are looking at “The Masked Dancer” as a limited
series companion to “The Masked Dancer” for now, an opportunity to
bridge two cycles of “Dancer.” But long term, “we’ll see how Dancer
does, and then ascertain after that if we want to bring that back or
whether this is just like a special series,” Wade said. “The hope is
obviously we can bring it back in some shape or form.”
Both Plestis and Wade are very aware of the danger of oversaturation.
“We just need to pour as much effort into sustaining as much of that as
we can,” Wade said. “I think you’ve got something that’s working then
of course it’s difficult not to put it on. It’s good to have something
on the air that’s really working.”
Added Plestis: “Don’t become predictable, always strive to be
different and embrace the bizarre. We can change our format on a dime
from season to season, and try different things out. We don’t want to
rest on our laurels.”
source: Michael Schneider https://variety.com
