A South Korean game show, whose U.S. version premiered in 2020 on Fox with Ken Jeong of The Masked Singer fame as host.
In each episode, a contestant is presented with a challenge: figuring out who among a group of six "secret singers" is bad or good, without hearing them sing live. The singers are identified only by their job title, with each round presenting clues towards the singers' background and how they perform. After each round, the contestant must eliminate one of the singers, after which they perform live on-stage; if the singer is revealed to be bad, the contestant earns a cash prize ($10,000 in the first two seasons, $15,000 since season 3). The contestant may also consult a celebrity panel, led by regulars such as Cheryl Hines, and containing a guest musician.
The exact rounds vary by season, but each episode invariably begins with one or two rounds focused on lip sync performances, and ends with the "Interrogation" — where the contestant asks questions of the final two singers for 60 seconds; in that round, the bad singers are required to lie.
At the end of the show, if the contestant can correctly guess whether the last remaining singer is good or bad (revealed through a duet with the guest musician), they pocket the $100,000 grand prize.
This series provides examples of:
- Adaptation Distillation:
- Some versions, particularly the original South Korean version, have the contestant be a celebrity guest rather than a civilian.
- The short-lived BBC version in the UK mostly followed the format of the Fox version. However, cash was not awarded for eliminating bad singers, and the objective was to instead have a good singer be the last one left in order to win the £10,000 grand prize (if the last singer was bad, they won the money instead).
- Catchphrase: "Let's! See! Your! Voice!"
- Celebrity Impersonator: A few of the secret singers have been this, while season 3 featured a "Doppelganger Night" episode, where all six singers were celebrity impersonators.
- Game Show Host: Ken Jeong
- Inept Talent Show Contestant: The "bad" singers are designed to fall into this category when revealed.
- Lifelines: The "Golden Mic" in the Lip Sync Showdown beginning in season 2, where the contestant can hear further observations from a celebrity guest off-stage.
- Secret Identity Vocal Shift: The "Secret Studio" round played in season 1 showed footage from a recording session by one of the secret singers, except with a Masked Singer-style effect filter on top of their vocals,
- Talent Double: Invoked in the opening lip sync round, where the bad singers mime to a recorded performance by a professional singer. The good singers mime to their own recording.
