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FOX THE MASKED DANCER: Cricket.
The Masked Dancer, FOX‘s spin-off from their hit celebrity competition series The Masked Dancer, has its series premiere on Sunday, December 27 at 8 pm ET. If you’re planning on tuning in, here’s what you need to know about the cast, including this season’s costumes, host, and judges:
There Are 10 Characters Competing on The Masked Dancer Season 1
The 10 costumed contestants on the first season of The Masked Dancer are Hammerhead Shark, Ice Cube, Disco Ball, Tulip, Zebra, Miss Moth, Exotic Bird, Cricket, Cotton Candy, and Sloth.
Group A is performing for the premiere. Group A includes Tulip, Cricket, Disco Ball, Hammerhead Shark, and Exotic Bird.
Next week, on January 6, Group B takes the stage. Group B includes Miss Mother, Cotton Candy, Sloth, Ice Cube, and Zebra.
According to FOX, the unidentified celebrities dancing behind the mask have a variety of impressive accolades. FOX teases, “Between all of the celebrity dancers, they’ve 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.”
Before the first episode of The Masked Dancer aired, FOX’s Twitter account appeared to drop an early clue to the Tulip’s identity. In a tweet, they wrote, “Yes, I know who’s under the mask. No, I can’t tell you. B̶u̶t̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶,̶ ̶I̶ ̶m̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶l̶e̶t̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶s̶l̶i̶p̶.”
An early release clip of Cotton Candy’s first performance of the season teased the competitor as an early frontrunner. Their performance, danced to “Glitter in the Air” by P!nk, started off with an aerial routine before transitioning into a lyrical partner dance with one of the backup performers. Judge Ashley Tisdale said on Twitter that it was one of her favorite performances of the seaso.
The Masked Singer’s Ken Jeong Is Among the Celebrity Panelists
Ken Jeong, who is one of the celebrity panelists for The Masked Singer, will be lending his guessing expertise as a judge for The Masked Dancer, too. Anticipate plenty of jokes and outlandish guesses from Jeong.
The other celebrities joining him on the panel are Paula Abdul, Ashley Tisdale, and Brian Austin Green (who was unmasked as the Giraffe on The Masked Singer season 4).
Hosting the show is Craig Robinson, who is no stranger to the quirky franchise – he appeared as a guest panelist on The Masked Singer season 4.
Ahead of the season premiere, Abdul talked to E! News about the panelists’ dynamic and how they kept the energy up during taping. She said, “This is the truth and I’m not kidding…in between performances when music’s playing, they encourage us to get up and dance. So I got my groove going and I’m moving, I’m on the beat… But then peripherally to the left of me, I see this going on… I see Ken doing crazy stuff. All of a sudden I start dancing like Elaine from Seinfeld.”
New episodes of The Masked Dancer air on Wednesday nights at 8/7c on FOX.
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‘The Masked Dancer’ Cast Spoilers 2020: The Contestants & Judges