Penn & Teller Discuss Shocking 'The Masked Singer' 20-Minute Unmasking

Fans were shocked to see Penn and Teller being unmasked on “The Masked Singer.”

They performed as the Hydra, which is the show’s biggest costume yet. It’s so big that TMZ reported that it had to be assembled right there on stage. Fans got a glimpse into the struggles of performing in the costume when the duo were asked to unmask and needed help getting out of the enormous costume.

Robin Thicke guessed Trey Parker & Matt Stone from “South Park.”

Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg guessed “Sesame Street” legends Bert & Ernie (yes, the puppets).

Ken Jeong thought it was Will Arnett & Zach Galifianakis.

Nicole Scherzinger guessed “Shake & Bake” Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly.

However, only “Nailed It” guest judge Nicole Byer gave a correct guess of Penn and Teller. For their final performance, the duo sang ZZ Top’s “Shark Dressed Man.”

Considering that Teller rarely – if ever – uses his speaking voice, it definitely was a surprise for fans, who wouldn’t have been able to identify his voice. Even the clues were a bit difficult to point directly to them.

Supposedly, the shark in Hydra’s package was a reference to Penn & Teller’s appearance in “Sharknado 3.” The Mega Clue of a joker in a deck of cards was a hint to their TV show “Fool Us.” The water skis with “Miami” written on them were supposed to be a nod to their appearances on the TV show “Miami Vice.”

Shortly after his unmasking, Penn sat down with TV Insider to discuss his unmasking and the enormous costume, which made it impossible for the judges to tell how many people were really performing in there.

“That was something we really wanted to do,” he explained. “We’re known a little bit as a duo. If you look up duo on the internet, we pop up first, and we knew if we were two people, we wouldn’t fool anybody for very long. And we also knew that we couldn’t squeeze into a costume for one person. So three seemed like a really good idea and the costume designers were brilliant and did a beautiful, beautiful job. And we thought being Hydra, the three-headed dog that guards the gates of hell, fit our personality very nicely.”

He also revealed that the unmasking was even more arduous than it looked on-screen!

“You didn’t see the stuff that was cut out. It wasn’t a difficult one-minute unmasking. It was about a 20-minute unmasking,” he explained. “They had to destroy the costume to get us out, so it was much more tricky than that and very uncomfortable to come out of, but remember Teller and I have been doing magic together for coming on a combined century, and so we’ve been in many, many, many tiny, uncomfortable, miserable, little compartments hiding [for] magic tricks. So if you were going to put anybody in that situation, we were the ones to choose.”

Penn said they decided to say yes to “The Masked Singer” because it “doesn’t have anything negative about it.”

“We are the longest-running headliners in Las Vegas history and we put a quarter of a million people into our show at the Penn & Teller theater every year, and that means we say yes to everything,” he explained. “But that being said, we don’t say yes to everything happily. We say yes to most things begrudgingly, and The Masked Singer was just so joyful.”

“It’s one of the few shows on TV that doesn’t have anything negative about it” he added. “It’s just sweet and kind, and like so many other shows that have judges, it doesn’t have a bunch of f---ing a--holes saying s--- they have no right to say. It’s people celebrating with sweetness and kindness. And so for me, that’s everything. I just loved it.”

He also said there was no question that Teller had to sing on the show because “my voice is more recognizable. I did years of work in the carnival, I’m carny trash. So my voice sounds like this, no matter what. I never sound better than this. And Teller, who has not been heard, was able to do the other two voices. So Teller was the real star of this. Teller really was really fabulous. No one’s more impressed with Teller than I am, and he was even more impressive than usual.”

When asked what they hope to take away from the entire experience, Penn replied, “There’s some hope for our culture. It has a lot of kindness left.”