If you have never seen The Masked Singer, the basic gist is that celebrities dress up in fun costumes and have their voices, save for their singing voice, disguised, which leads to a panel of other celebs having to guess who they are based solely on their singing voice and context clues given in little video packages. It is a very silly concept for a show, but it’s one that works out surprisingly well, as evidenced by the time Victor Oladipo went on it and absolutely brought the house down with, among other songs, a performance of John Legend’s “Ordinary People.”
This year’s The Masked Singer is in full swing, and earlier this week, we learned that someone else from the world of sports appeared on the show this season. As you’ve read in the title, it was former USC and NFL quarterback Mark Sanchez, who was eliminated earlier this week following two performances. Together, let us go through the two data points that were provided before he — dressed up in a Baby Alien costume — got eliminated.
Now, outside of the clues about being good at a job in New York — which, to be fair, could mean being the former quarterback of the Jets or, like, someone who makes really sensational pizza — there’s not a ton in here that indicates it’s him, although he did, of course, appear on stage at the Tony’s once. As for the performance, you can certainly hear it’s Sanchez’s voice once you’re aware it’s him, but regardless, this is a very solid take on George Michael’s “Faith.” Anyway, he was safe; the panelists guessed Ralph Macchio, David Schwimmer, and Freddie Prinze Jr.; and later in the episode, Busta Rhymes and Mickey Rourke got bounced.
But in true Jets fashion, it became obvious that aspirations of winning it all would not last more than two weeks. Behold:
Some decent clues here — charity work, a hot dog, Sanchez was once the victim of a crooked broker taking millions — and put forth a decent rendition of “It’s Time” by Imagine Dragons. Joel McHale said the words “football player,” which was quite the coincidence, and they got an extra clue via a childhood clue: a firetruck, as Sanchez’s dad is a fire captain in California. The panelists were … all over the place, guessing Eric Bana, Jeff Dunham, Taylor Lautner.
Ultimately, though, he was eliminated, and everyone seemed to be caught way off guard by it being Sanchez, as no one came to even suspect an athlete.
Kudos to Sanchez for fooling everyone, showing off the pipes, and apparently learning a thing or two about puppetry in the process. Hopefully we get a new Jets quarterback on this every season, because I want to hear Chad Pennington sing.
