Sunday was the night of the 90s The Masked Singerwith Judge Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg all dressed up for the occasion in tragic kingdom-era Gwen Stefani; host Nick Cannon dressed as Bobby “The Crab” Brown, as is his prerogative; and Tag Team presenting each clue package with a “Whoomp! There it is!” refrain. We even had A girl meets the world *NSYNC star Danielle Fishel and Lance Bass pass. This made Lance the third *NSYNC member to appear on The Masked Singerafter Joey “The Rabbit” Fatone from Season 1 and Chris “The Hummingbird” Kirkpatrick from this season, we’re just missing Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez to round out the set and get everything, uh, in sync.
Yes, the 90’s dream was alive on The Masked Singer, and in general, I loved the Dream Themes this season – previous episodes have included Andrew Lloyd Webber Night, TV Theme Song Night, even Muppets Night. But I found the new Season 8 format, which featured an almost immediate double elimination every episode, to be more of a nightmare. (See my long rant on how this change in format sucked much of the fun and suspense out of the show.) This week was no exception, with two mystery singers already unmasked at the end of the hour-long episode. . All the judges complained that this was an episode where all three contestants really deserved to stay, and the miffed fans on Twitter seemed to agree. But the dream of the 90s has unfortunately been dashed for the Walrus and the Milkshake.
Jenny actually thought the walrus, which put its own spin on Spin Doctors’ 1992 hit ‘Two Princes’, was the aforementioned JC Chasez, while fellow judges guessed the slightly hoarse-tusked warbler might being another idol like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, John Stamos, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Mario Lopez or Scott Wolff. But only Robin Thicke understood that Flower Sitcom star Joey Lawrence was the walrus. (goo goo drinks. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
“I’ve seen all the different shows you’ve been through in your career, and I remember when you released a song, I was like, ‘Wow, I want to have a video and have my song [be like that]’, because we kinda looked alike,” Robin confessed to a very flattered Joey. Jenny was a newly converted Joey fan, exclaiming, “Where are your albums? You need scrapbooks! You need tons of albums!” – to which Joey replied that he was indeed planning to make music again. “You should, man; you looked great,” Robin said. So Joey can thrive again…but that was it for the Walrus.
The Milkshake also didn’t bring any judges or studio audience voters into court (sorry, again – this time for the off-theme mid-2000s reference), even though its swaggy performance of ” Jump on Judges Nicole Scherzinger and Ken Jeong thought he was a legit hip-hop “superstar” like LL Cool J, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Nas, Ice Cube, or even TI (if that had been TI, I’m pretty sure former TI “Blurred Lines” collaborator Robin would have figured this out quickly.)
Instead, this dairy king turned out to be NFL running back Le’Veon Bell, who tried to tackle the Lambs in a duel worthy of Roxbury from “What Is Love.” from Haddaway, but just couldn’t compete with their happy, blended, bleating harmonies. But that might not be the last we hear of Le’Veon either. “I really try to show my talents, you know? A lot of people know me for the football pitch. I just wanted to get into another lane and show people that I’m more talented in other areas than football. ,” he explained.
So that meant the reigning queen, or queens, retained their title for a second week: the fluffy flock known as the Lambs. These sheep-dressed pop-starlets gloriously harmonized to Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic” and had Nicole exclaim, “Oh my God, your voices are unbelievable! You sound like a record up there!” It was obvious from their girl group voice alone that those musical sheep with chops were Wilson Phillips, as I had guessed last week. But in case anyone reading this would need more convincing, here are the clues:
We know the Lambs are “best friends” from childhood, and we’ve seen references to SoCal cities Beverly Hills and Venice — and Chynna Phillips, Carnie Wilson and Wendy Wilson grew up together in California. We’ve seen the word “FAMOUS” on a pair of designer jeans – and these women have celebrity in their Genoa as the offspring of John and Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. We saw a diamond ring – mainly as a reference to Bridesmaids, which featured an iconic cameo by Wilson Phillips. And the Lambs bragged about working with Paul McCartney — and Wilson Phillips contributed backup vocals to McCartney’s “FourFiveSeconds” in 2015. Other tidbits included a mention of Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way,” than Wilson Phillips covered in 2004; “dreaming” (either a reference to the Mamas and the Papas’ biggest hit or Wilson Phillips’ single “The Dream Is Still Alive”); and “reality” (Wilson Phillips starred in their own reality series, Always hold on, in 2012, and Carnie has appeared on several reality shows). It’s absolutely not a knee-jerk guess when I say the Lambs are Wilson Phillips.
So, can the Lambs hold out one more day and qualify for this season’s semi-finals alongside Season 8’s reigning Bracket A queen, Amber “The Harp” Riley? Find out next week when they take on two more new competitors.
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