No Joke: Jack Black Will Receive The Comedic Genius Award At The Movie & TV Awards

Question: What do you think of when you hear the term “comedic genius?” Do you envision an actor whose energy level is always at 100 percent, so much that they devour their scenes by becoming a gut-busting tornado? Or do you see a musical performer who intentionally embodies every single rock-star cliché onstage and dials them all up past max volume, thereby transcending cliché altogether and reaching something pure and singularly hilarious?

Can you imagine both? You can if you think of Jack Black.

The long-standing funnyman will make it official when he is honored with the Comedic Genius Award at the 2022 MTV Movie & TV Awards, airing live from the Barker Hangar in Los Angeles on June 5 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

The Comedic Genius designation “honors an actor who has made incomparable contributions to the world of comedy, providing a major influence through their work and transforming the genre at large” — and what could better describe Black’s work in both film and the musical sphere, where his band Tenacious D has made a Grammy-winning career out of embracing spectacle (and pure rock and roll attitude).

Black will become the fifth-ever recipient of the awad, following Sacha Baron Cohen at last year’s ceremony, Melissa McCarthy in 2016, Kevin Hart in 2015, and Will Ferrell in 2013.

In addition to his career-defining roles in films like School of Rock, Nacho Libre, Kung-Fu Panda, Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle, Orange County, High Fidelity, and more, Black can most recently be heard as the voice of adult Stanley in Richard Linklater’s film of wonder, Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood.

Hosted by Vanessa Hudgens, this year’s MTV Movie & TV Awards is set to be a big one-night takeover of L.A., including the Movie & TV Awards: UNSCRIPTED special, set to air directly after. Tayshia Adams will be your host for those proceedings. Find the full list of nominees here.

The occasion of being honored with the Comedic Genius Award is indeed something to celebrate. It might even be the kind of thing Black would call “kinda… juicy.”

The 2022 MTV Movie & TV Awards and the Movie & TV Awards: UNSCRIPTED will both air live from the Barker Hangar in L.A. on Sunday, June 5 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.