Hold the pickle!
Michael Rapaport was revealed Wednesday night as the Pickle on Fox’s “The Masked Singer.”
The 53-year-old actor and comedian has often played “tough guy” roles on television, including in “My Name is Earl,” “Prison Break,” “Justified” and “Only Murders in the Building,” but his latest small screen appearance definitely had the most crunch.
Dressed in his signature green tuxedo and top hat, Pickle kicked off 2000s night with his rendition of “Beverly Hills” by Weezer.
And he was full of Big Dill Energy.
Rapaport delivered a performance that was all sweet and not sour, ad-libbing the words “pickle, pickle’ into his song.
*NSYNC crooner Lance Bass hit the stage with a “lovely collection of pickles with beautiful wigs” and googly eyes to deliver Pickle’s clue. The box was labeled “Friends,” causing Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg, 50, to suggest the mysterious comestible might be a member of the hit NBC hit sitcom’s cast, or alternatively one of its guest stars.
Dressed in his signature green tuxedo and top hat, Rappaport kicked off 2000s night with a rendition of “Beverly Hills” by Weezer. FOX“Well, I’ve done so many things for so many years, and people always associate me with my famous friends,” “Pickle” teased.
“I wanted to tell Lance to tell the other contestants to go a-bye, bye, bye,” Pickle added. “‘Cause it’s over tonight! Bye, bye, bye!”
In the opening clue package for the Pickle this season, Rapaport admitted, “To be honest with you, I never imagined myself dressing up as a pickle, singing center stage. But now that I’m here, this wild boy’s planning on winning. And trust me, I’ve learned to never count myself out. When I was young all my teachers thought I was nothin’. Said I was a hyper, disruptive kid who had no interest in anything but sports. It was basically decided that I was a bad boy with no future. But once I found my true passion, I became laser focused. Nothing or nobody was going to stand in my way. Lo and behold I reached massive success, rubbing elbows with some of the most famous people on earth — Tarantino, Scorsese, Short. Maybe you’ve heard of them.”
Visual clues included a joker playing card, graffiti, a mic and photos of director Quentin Tarantino’s actors and of Martin Scorsese and Martin Short.
He added, “Yeah, my mouth still gets me into beef, but that hyper disruptive kid became a super successful hyper disruptive adult.”
When it came time, at the end of the night, for the judges to make their guesses, Nicole Scherzinger guessed actor Charlie Sheen; Ken Jeong, shock jock Howard Stern, and Wahlberg, late night host and funnyman Conan O’Brien.
“I did fantastic. I was unbelievable,” Rapaport said when he was unmasked. “The crowd went crazy. I had a great time, I love this show, I love (host Nick Cannon), I love all these guys.” FOXRobin Thicke, 46, was adamant Pickle was Joel McHale because of the character’s funky dance moves. The “Blurred Lines” singer quipped that if it wasn’t McHale, then he’d never seen the actor dance before.
All of the judges were, of course, wrong, marking the first time all four struck out this season.
“I love that they never got me,” Rapaport said in an interview with Variety. “I was scared shitless that they were going to figure me out. But I loved that I got away scott free. And I was very proud of that. It’s because the voice wasn’t the persona that they think of as Michael Rapaport. The voice is golden.”
“The Masked Singer” airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on FOX.
