“Are you crazy? I won’t survive this!”: The costume show “The Masked Singer” is back. A TV oldie has to go first – he dressed up as the Germans’ favorite tuber.
He used to present small fruits on “Tutti Frutti”, now he was a big potato himself: presenter Hugo Egon Balder was exposed on the ProSieben show “The Masked Singer”. The 74-year-old received too few votes from the audience at the start of the new season of the music puzzle show – and therefore had to take off the costume under which he had been hiding until then.
It was a couch potato – a cozy giant potato with a belly over the waistband of his pants who likes to watch TV. Two helpers had to help Balder out of the massive masquerade. “I’m 74 now,” he said afterwards. “I’ve already noticed what it’s like in the coffin.”
Guessing takes practice
Nobody had previously guessed that Balder was in the wrinkle outfit. Moderator Palina Rojinski (38), who has recently joined the show’s advice team, guessed actor Florian David Fitz (49), who is 25 years her junior, and her colleague Rick Kavanian (53) guessed the even younger Matthias Schweighöfer (43).
Only musician Max Giesinger (35) went in a different direction as a guest on the advice team and speculated that ex-football manager Reiner Calmund (75) could be the big tuber. Maybe that was also due to the couch potato’s impressive mustache, which was reminiscent of the “Callis”‘s upper lip hair from earlier years.
From pub to potato
But when Balder appeared, people were astonished. In a way, it was also with him. “I didn’t expect to get through the show,” he said – although he still looked pretty fresh compared to many others in the history of the format. “When they asked me, I first said: Are you crazy? I won’t survive this! And then everyone said to me: Yes, you will survive,” reported Balder. “And I survived.”
It’s actually no secret that the TV veteran is multi-talented and not averse to nonsense. As a presenter, Balder shaped the anarchic show “Alles Nothing Or?!”, the comedy quiz “Genial Neben” and also the erotic game show “Tutti Frutti”, in which hardly anyone understood the rules, but in which fruits like cherries, Strawberries and lemons stuck to young women’s nipples. Balder is an actor, barman and actually a musician. Today, however, only gourmets know his hit song “Elvira, pick up your garter”. Balder even once wanted to become a conductor.
New season, new masks – and one always changes the wearer
Now he was the first celebrity to be thrown out by viewers in the tenth season of “The Masked Singer,” which started on Saturday. There are now seven more masks in the running – a baby lion, a large flip-flop, a crocodile, a cotton candy with googly eyes, a futuristic dog (“Robodog”), the harbinger of spring “Elgonia” and a flea riding on a snail. Moderator Matthias Opdenhövel (53) promised that the field of participants would include winners of “well over” 200 gold and platinum records. There are also three recipients of the Federal Cross of Merit.
For the tenth season, ProSieben has made some changes to the format. In addition to the new guessing team, which presented itself without the eternal puzzle queen Ruth Moschner, there is a new dramaturgical element. A mask, “the mystery”, is revealed every week outside of the regular competition – and each time there is a new celebrity underneath. The trick pushes the number of unmaskings in the season to a new high. Opera singer Rolando Villazón (52) made the start. He sang his song, was puzzled by the advice team (“There’s a real performer behind it,” said Max Giesinger), not recognized, unmasked – and was soon able to leave again.
Does the flip-flop really sound like Oli.P?
Other participants, on the other hand, have to continue to think about it. Is singer Oli.P (45) in a flip-flop? Rojinski speculated that, Giesinger agreed: “I’ve seen him several times in Hamburg,” the musician revealed. “He always wore flip-flops that looked something like this.”
When it came to the baby lion, Giesinger was extremely sure that he was looking at an older person – at least 65 years old, in his opinion. “I don’t know if you’re that old. If not, I’m really sorry,” he said. When it came to the identity of the big candy floss, the singer – who was once an integral part of the guessing team in the first season and is now celebrating a comeback as a guest – threw the name of presenter Enie van de Meiklokjes into the ring, even if he was with Confectionery was obviously not very familiar (“What are these pastries called? Macaroni?”).
And always Raab
What was striking was how often the name of Stefan Raab was mentioned in the evening. According to announcements, he is planning a boxing match against Regina Halmich this year, but has largely withdrawn from the public for years. In the viewer tips collected by ProSieben, he came in first place for both Couch Potato and “Mysterium”. Rojinski even said that the potato looked a little like Raab’s face.
Instead, balder was peeled from the tuber. “On the one hand, of course, you’re sad that you’re no longer there,” he said. “On the other hand, of course, I can now accept all of my theater engagements, which I canceled with big lies. I lied as much as I could.”