![\"Jack](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Jack-Black-Actor-2025-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n
Fri 9 January 2026 17:30, UK <\/p>\n
Back in 1982, at the age of 13, Jack Black<\/a> appeared in his first TV commercial promoting the Atari video game Pitfall, thoroughly impressing his classmates, but he would just as quickly experience his first dose of backlash after his second gig as an advertising actor aired a few months later.<\/p>\n \u201cSmurfberry Crunch,\u201d Black recalled to the Associated Press back in 2003, referring to a short-lived, Smurfs-themed breakfast cereal he pretended to love in the commercial, \u201cMy stock plummeted at school\u201d.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a bit of a reach, maybe, but that Pitfall vs Smurfberry dynamic has basically been the story of Jack Black\u2019s entire career. After scrounging around as a bit player for most of the \u201890s, the success of his rock-comedy group\/TV series Tenacious D put him on the first rung of the fame ladder, leading to breakout stardom with 2003\u2019s School of Rock. From that point forward, it\u2019s been a zig-zaggy career of big highs in the forms of Tropic Thunder, Kung Fu Panda, Jumanji, A Minecraft Movie, with equally big fails, such as Year One, Gulliver\u2019s Travels, Borderlands, and probably the new Anaconda film.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even the beloved Tenacious D weren\u2019t invulnerable to the constant movement of the tides, as the implosion of the band over Kyle Gas\u2019 anti-Trump statements in 2024 brought heat on Black from both the Maga world and longtime D fans who\u2019d felt he had abandoned his pal. And yet, here he is, still going strong more than 40 years after that Pitfall ad, a survivor of the very hazards that game had warned him about.<\/p>\n With all this in mind, it should come as no surprise that Black has a particular affinity for artists who deliver the goods, day after day, year after year, in the face of adversity and wavering critical and public opinion. As a rock n\u2019 roll obsessive, he also holds no artists in higher esteem than the proud purveyors of Satan\u2019s preferred genre of music, so when a tribute concert was announced to pay tribute to longtime Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins<\/a> in 2022, the man made a point of being there.\u00a0<\/p>\n At that star-studded concert, held at the Los Angeles Forum roughly five months after Hawkins\u2019 shocking death at the age of 50, Black briefly took to the stage to share his memories of his friend, and to introduce one of Hawkins\u2019 favourite bands, Rush.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat an incredible show, what an incredible tribute to a beautiful man,\u201d he said, \u201cI was lucky. I got to see Taylor live in person several times, and he always blew doors down. Anyone who saw him live and in person knows what I\u2019m talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n Black then shared a personal memory of going backstage at the very same LA Forum in 2014, when the Foo Fighters were playing a set as part of Dave Grohl\u2019s 45th birthday celebration, recalling, \u201cI poked my head into Taylor\u2019s dressing room, and he was just fucking practising as hard as hell. It was a beautiful thing to see, \u2019cause he was serious, no fucking around. He really meant it, and it was important to him. He didn\u2019t want to do a good show. He wanted to fucking blow people\u2019s minds. And he did it.\u201d<\/p>\n