‘The Masked Singer’ Pays Tribute To Beloved ‘Beetle’ Jerry Springer

The Masked Singer’s quarterfinals aired Wednesday night, but the episode did more than highlight the performances of the final four contenders in the competition and unmask one of them.

It also paid tribute to a beloved former contender.

In the very last moment of the show, an end card flashed across the screen honoring the man who appeared as a well-dressed insect in Season 8, the late Jerry Springer.

“In loving memory of our ‘Beetle,’ Jerry Springer,” read a message written across of a image of him shortly after he removed his mask on “Muppet Night” in 2022. It was followed by the dates of tabloid TV host’s birth and death, February 13, 1944 – April 27, 2023.

The audio that played over the end card featured people chanting, “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” just as they did during his appearance on the show and so many other times throughout his career.

There wasn’t really much mystery behind Beetle’s identity when Springer took The Masked Singer stage. His distinct voice, popularized over decades on the small screen, may have been altered when he was speaking, but his cadence remained unmistakable.

As he put it in his clue package, “You’ve definitely heard my voice before, and you’ve probably yelled my name at your TV.”

If that wasn’t enough, other clues delivered before he sang practically gave it all away. The former mayor of Cincinnati teased that “Like the good beetle I am, I got involved in public service.” And after speaking about his later rise to pop culture fame, he lamented, “My work has been called some of the worst of all time.” He even swung a gavel, like he did back in his Judge Jerry days.

As for his song choice, he serenaded Kermit the Frog with Frank Sinatra’s 1964 hit, “The Way You Look Tonight.” But as Springer later revealed in an interview with Davide Yontef, for the Behind the Velvet Rope podcast, he couldn’t really look at Kermit or anything else during the bit.

“I didn’t do half the dance I was supposed to do because I couldn’t see out of my mask,” he recalled. “I was wearing that big head, which is bigger than my head. When they put it on, it’s perfect, but when you move around, it moves. So the openings, where my eyes were supposed to be, my eyes did not line up with the openings. I couldn’t see a thing. ‘Am I going to fall off the stage? Am I turning in the right direction?’”

He said it made him nervous, but once the song and dance was over, Springer was just happy to have been a part of the popular series.

“I’m glad I was on, because it was so great working with those people,” he continued. “It was just a fun, fun, experience.”