Not since Kermit the Frog competed as Snail in season 5, or returned last season to sing “Rainbow Connection” in a special Muppet-themed extravaganza, hasn’t there been such a warm and fuzzy, literally fuzzy, episode of He masked singer Like this week’s Sesame Street Night.
Wednesday’s opening number, with Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Elmo, Grover, the Earl, and even a reluctant Oscar the Grouch singing BTS’s “Dynamite,” was already enough to bring sunny days, sweep away the clouds, and make everything happy. good. . But when a special surprise guest, happy and healthy Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, showed up on the block, this episode was definitely brought to you by the letter A…for ADORABLE.
Hamlin reportedly recorded his feel-good cameo in January, just weeks after going into cardiac arrest and collapsing on the field during a Monday Night Football game against the Cincinnati Bengals. On that shocking and terrifying night of January 2, the 24-year-old NFL star was administered CPR for 10 minutes before being taken off the field in an ambulance, but made a miraculous recovery and was released from General Medical Center. of Buffalo. Gates Vascular Institute just nine days later.
Damar could have celebrated with “I’m going to Disneyland!” moment, but instead he went to the masked singer – much to the delight of the studio audience, the judging panel, and most of all, Darma’s little brother.
It was early on Wednesday’s episode, after reigning Season 9 champion Squirrel serenaded the Earl with “Just the Two of Us,” that a cute 8-year-old boy named Damir came out to provide one of the Squirrel’s weekly clues. Taking a seat at the famous 123 Sesame Street next to Elmo, Damir told the red fluffy icon that he was there “with my brother,” to which the Muppet exclaimed, “Really? Well, let’s get him out!”
“Ladies and gentlemen, Buffalo Bills in the building! Damar Hamlin, the man who brought the world together, inspiring us all!” declared host Nick Cannon, as the judges, including guest panelist Jennifer Nettles, jumped out of their chairs at the sight of the smiling Damar walking out with a football emblazoned with Ken Jeong’s face. Ken seemed the most excited by this unexpected masked singer a kind of revelation, shouting: “It’s so good to see you! My God, I’m going crazy! I’m so glad you’re here, but more importantly, I’m so glad you’re healthy. The whole world loves you!”
When Nick asked Damar why she decided to visit the masked singer, of all places, the soccer hero replied: “Mostly because of my brother. You know, that’s my world. I put family first. and he loves Sesame Street more than most things. So, we had to do it tonight.”
“What a beautiful moment,” Nick gushed, speaking for all of America.
So the squirrel became part of masked singer history by association, but sadly, she was unable to keep her reigning queen title for a second week; in fact, she was the first contestant to be eliminated on Wednesday, without even making it to battle royale. While she claimed to be a rock girl at heart (last week, she “tapped into her inner rock star” and sank her rodent teeth into covers of Pink and 3 Doors Down), Squirrel’s Grover Washington Jr./Bill Withers ballad is week was a bit too relaxed to be really competitive.
So, the Squirrel was ordered to get the hell out of there, and I guessed correctly last Wednesday, and Judge Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg found out this week, that she was revealed to be a funny lady, Rock of Ages actress, former alt-rock frontman for Petalstones and Ken’s couples retreat co-star, Malin Akerman.
As for the other two contestants of the night, Jackalope and Fairy, neither of them covered Oscar the Grouch’s “I Love Trash,” Bert’s “Doin’ the Pigeon,” or Cookie Monster’s “Cookie Disco” (or nothing of Sesame Street Fever, disappointingly) on Sesame Street Night. The other revelation of the night, Jackalope, who turned out to be social media star Lele Pons, bewilderingly sang Shakira’s “Wherever, Whenever,” which apparently had nothing to do with the week’s theme.
But at least the Fairy paid homage to bad boy Oscar the Curmudgeon with Linda Ronstadt’s “You’re No Good,” a performance Oscar complained as “also good!” and judge Robin Thicke raved: “Your vocal tone was perfect for that song, so soft and sultry.” round next week, it’s time to do some guesswork: Who is the Fairy?
A self-described “nepo-fairy” who entrepreneurially used to charge the children of her neighborhood an entrance fee to visit her famous father, this magical creature “grew up in these [Sesame] streets” with friends from the Brat Pack like Sean Penn, Rob Lowe and Emilio Estevez. However, she “chose a more divergent path, prioritizing my education and world travel” before eventually returning to “Tinsel Town” to pursue her two loves of singing and acting. Her other tracks included a panther, a basketball, a police badge, and the song “Endless Love”. The judges thought she might be Tracee Ellis Ross (not a bad guess), Angelina Jolie (that was a bad guess from Ken of course) or “nepo-baby” Rashida Jones… but I think this is Holly Robinson Peete.
Besides the fact that Holly can legitimately sing, in the words of the Earl, most of the Fairy/Holly clues add up. Holly attended the same Los Angeles high school as Penn, Lowe, and Estevez; she put her acting career on hold to study psychology and French at Sarah Lawrence College and play music in Paris nightclubs; she is married to Rodney Peete of the Carolina Panthers; she starred in the police drama 21 Jump Street and the basketball-centric sitcom Hanging out with Mr. Cooper; and played “Endless Love” diva Diana Ross in the ABC miniseries The Jacksons: an American dream. And if you need even more connection, Holly is the daughter of the late actor Matt Robinson, the original Gordon in Sesame Street — and made his first television appearance in Sesame Street herself at 6 years old!
But whoever the Fairy is, she’s a professional. As Jennifer Nettles, a huge Linda Ronstadt fan, attested, the Fairy bravely “took” Ronstadt’s song “and it sounded amazing… which makes me think you’ve done this before!” So check out the Fairy in next week’s Field Night (which, for some strange reason, No being judged as a guest by Nettles), when she tries to leave two new contestants choking on her pixie dust.
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