Fervent fans of JM Dela Cerna and Marielle Montellano were indeed treated to a fun, interesting game called “Iconator This or That: JMielle Edition,” where the pair revisited their memorable impersonations. In this Kapamilya Chat challenge, they had to choose between pairs of icons they previously portrayed until only one remained, making it their automatic ultimate favorite.
The initial round of elimination kicked off by having the Birit Duo choose between their performances of “The Prayer” as Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion and of “Shallow” as Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, to which they unanimously chose the former.
Next was a clash between their winning transformation into Glinda and Elphaba—the characters played by Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, respectively, in the musical film “Wicked”—as they hit the high notes of “Defying Gravity” and their impersonation of the father-daughter tandem of Jose Mari Chan and Lisa Chan for their rendition of “Christmas in Our Hearts.”
As they chose the former, Marielle revealed that it actually took their makeup artist Hajie Alejandro almost three hours to perfect her transformation to Glinda, while he had to finish JM’s hair and makeup as Elphaba within 30 minutes since the taping then was already about to begin and they were the first performer.
For the third set, JMielle had different preferences, which prompted them to do “bato-bato-pik" to determine what they should choose. Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj’s “Beauty and a Beat” lost to Janno Gibbs and Jaya’s “Ikaw Lamang” after Marielle was defeated by JM.
JM confessed that for their “Beauty and A Beat” act, he actually forgot to imitate Justin’s voice at the beginning of the performance since he was quite anxious about the choreography he had to do. He was able to bounce back at the chorus part, and JMielle eventually dominated the round.
While their “Beauty and A Beat” number captured totally different facets of them that we don’t often see in their other performances, JM believed that their “Ikaw Lamang” duet as Janno and Jaya was among their most vocally accurate impersonations. Even the original artists, Jaya and Janno Gibbs, gave their approval by commenting on one of the videos of their performances.
JMielle then didn’t have to think hard in the fourth set, as they quickly dismissed their transformations of Christina Aguilera and Sabrina Carpenter for “What a Girl Wants” and chose the viral hit “Palagi” by KZ Tandingan and TJ Monterde.
And lastly, they opted for “Hot Legs” by Rod Stewart and Tina Turner over “Hero” by Mariah Carey and Luciano Pavarotti. Marielle highlighted this as her first and only gender-switch performance, making it especially unforgettable. JM added that Marielle truly embodied Rod Stewart, while Marielle praised JM’s impressive footwork during the number.
As the game progressed, the choices have become fewer and tougher. For the second round, JMielle chose their Ariana-Cynthia transformation over Celine-Andrea, as well as KZ-TJ over Janno-Jaya. Meanwhile, for the final round, it was their Ariana-Cynthia impersonation that triumphed over KZ-TJ and Rod-Tina, which confirmed that it was indeed their pick as their ultimate favorite.
To cap off the game, JM and Marielle delighted fans by performing a short live sample of the song in character as Glinda and Elphaba, bringing back the magic of their second winning transformation.