‘The Masked Singer’ reveals Leaf Sheep as football legend John Elway

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Masked Singer Season 12, Episode 1, “Premiere: Who Could It Be Now?”

The Masked Singer The season 12 premiere took a step in a direction that no premiere had taken before: it had William Shatner introduce the plot.

Shatner, who already appeared as Knight in season 8, channeled his duties as host of The Unexplained to introduce the season and give a brief overview of Maskedor as he put it: “The only show that keeps you guessing, wondering and constantly begging to know who it could be now?”

On time, returning panelist Rita Ora sang Men at Work's “Who Can It Be Now?” before the competition officially began. It was a suitably star-studded start to the new season, given the twist Nick Cannon introduced next: Masked Ambassadors. These ambassadors are all former contestants of the show – one for each of the 15 contestants from season 12 – who support and introduce the new singers.

For Group A of the first episode, it was Nick Lachey (aka Piglet, Season 5 winner), who served as ambassador for Buffalo; Jenifer Lewis (aka Miss Cleocatra, Season 11), who supported Woodpecker; DeMarcus Ware (aka Koala, Season 11) for Leaf Sheep; Joel McHale (frequent guest panelist and a thorn in the side of longtime panelist Ken Jeong) for Showbird; and Jewel (aka Queen of Hearts, Season 6 winner), who served as ambassador for Ship.

The other big surprise of the premiere came during the first masked performance of the evening. Up until then, Buffalo had been marketed as a singer, but during his rendition of Cutting Crew's “(I Just) Died in Your Arms,” ​​not one but two other buffalo appeared from behind the scenes and joined in. As Jeong so aptly put it, “It's a herd!”

The rest of the premiere was business as usual for the hit celebrity singing show. After all the performances, it was clear that there were a few professional singers, a few people who may not be known for their voices but clearly have talent, and the underdog who definitely made the show just a laugh.

In this case, as is often the case with Masked Singerthe final contestant – Leaf Sheep – was the first to be eliminated after the jury and studio audience voted. As always, the judges had to make their final guesses about his identity before he could remove the oversized sea snail mask.

All but Ora picked a former NFL star: Robin Thicke picked Troy Aikman, Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg picked Tom Brady and Jeong chose John Elway. Ora had the special honor of making the worst guess of the night – she chose Billy Bob Thornton – but since she's British and therefore doesn't know American football, she might be spared.

In the end, Jeong continued his winning streak of correctly guessing sports stars and started the 12th season with the first win: Leaf Sheep was unmasked, revealing legendary Denver Broncos quarterback and two-time Super Bowl champion John Elway.

After Thicke and Jeong thanked Elway for the honor of having him on the show and raved about watching him play as a kid, Cannon closed things out by telling fans to tune in next week. Unbound Night, in honor of the film's 40th anniversary. Star Kevin Bacon is set to make a video appearance in the episode, which will once again feature the participants of Group A.

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The Masked Singer airs Wednesdays from 8-9 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.