It’s Sports Night on tomorrow’s edition of The Masked Singer, with guests Joel McHale and Nikki Glaser on hand as ringside announcers for a makeshift boxing match. In Fox’s preview clip, McHale brays, “It’s a great day to play a guessing game!”
“Oh yes,” agrees Glaser. “And look — the fight is about to start!”
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Robin Thicke and Rita Ora dance into the ring wearing silk boxing robes, raring to kick off the show with corner help from Ken Jeong and Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg. Thicke bites his lip and strokes his air guitar before breaking into a rousing version of… “Rock You Like A Hurricane”? Really?
Yep, with the death toll from Hurricane Milton at 24 and counting, Fox chose this week to lead off a reality show with a 1984 Scorpions rocker referencing killer storms. The next time Califonia loses houses to muddy avalanches, should we expect a cover of Stevie Nicks’ “Landslide”? “Twist and Shout” when tornadoes ravage the Midwest?
“Give The Masked Singer a break,” you might be saying. After all, most of the taping for this season happened at the end of June. Fair enough. How could the producers possibly know that deadly hurricanes might hit during the show’s fall run?
Well, let’s see. Last fall’s Atlantic hurricane season was the fourth most active in history, with Idalia causing 12 deaths and $3.6 billion in damages in Florida. In 2022, Category 4 Hurricane Ian hit Florida with more than six feet of storm surge. 2021 saw a record number of tropical cyclones in the region.
Any idiot should have seen it coming. At the very least, why not re-edit the show once the utter crassness of “Rock You Like A Hurricane” became apparent? Unfortunately, like many of the show’s celebrity vocalists, it appears The Masked Singer’s producers are tragically tone-deaf.