Jack Black cosplays as Eddie Riggs at VMAs

by Justin McElroy on Sep 14th 2009 8:30AM

Okay, sure, he may have looked ridiculous dressed up as Eddie Riggs at last night's MTV video Music Awards, what with that awful wig and foam arms that would have been laughed off the set of Popeye. And yeah, we know he's got a stake in the project's success, but you have to love Jack Black's commitment to Brütal Legend, one that we wish all big-name celebrities could share when they appear in games of their own.

Seriously though, Jack, let's have a talk about that wig.

Source

Tags: brutal-legend, cosplay, double-fine, ea, Electronic-Arts, jack-black, Microsoft, tim-schafer, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (84)

Well here's another one they haven't got to yet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVd2K9Tnvhs

Would have looked a bit more convincing if Jack Black still had that signature soul patch. http://i25.tinypic.com/309ujq8.jpg

Thats awesome support of the game, but his arm is giving me the creeps.

At least it's not his wife.

He lead the audience in prayer to Satan. Fake EA protesters are going to have a field day with that one.

SATANIC PRAYER ON LIVE TV THAT MADE A BUNCH OF PEOPLE UNCOMFORTABLE FTW!!!

got respect a guy for put his neck on the line, hopefully this will get a lot more people interested in the game

There's really no way this gig can be bad for his career.

Pretty cool. Looking forward to BL next month!

yeah me too I was like fuck those stuck up bastards!

METAL! METAL! METAL!

Even though the nominees were mostly alternative rock and punk rock for best "Rock" video -_-'

metal dead? it never dies

*cue guitar riff*

Punk-Rock tried to kill the metal!
But they failed, as they were smite to the ground.
Tim Schafer tried to heal the metal!
And he succed, as he made Brutal Legend.

How many minutes to midnight?

It's cosplay when fans dress up as characters. When companies pay actors to do it, it's just regular old promotion.

Metal is far from dead, personally I hate the genre. Never liked it at all but it's still undead and kicking out there. In North America it's less pervelant then it used to be (but if games like Rockband and Guitar Hero are any indicator by their track list it's still quite popular.) But in places like Europe, The Netherlands, and other far flung areas metal is more than surviving but thriving. Germany, Russia, around the world metal rages on. Hell even in Japan, a lot of the Visikei bands are hair metal taken to the next logical extreem (Dire en gray for example.) It's like that tenacious D song goes:
No one can destroy the metal
The Metal will strike you down with a vicious blow
We are the vanquished foes of the metal
we tried to win for why, we do not know.

@BlaqueBeird Woah there Tex. Okay I'm with you to a certain extent on some of your points (mind you Italians are white by every definition that I understand and actually Columbus wasn't the first European to "discover" North America that was the Vikings but that's a side point.)

Where I have a bone of conention with what you are saying is that the US and Canada have no culture. As a Canadian we are pretty... how should I put this, inseucre about our cultural identity. Francaphone Canada has a pretty distinct set of cultural signposts with the Quebecois or the Maratime Francaphone communities, these have a distinct language, cultural heritage (the east cost Francaphones being the source of America's Canjun population when they were disposesed and transplanted from New Acadia to Louisiana.) There is a distinct art and music (aside from those artists working in the French language but in the English genres.) So there's one portion of Canada spoken for, now, English Canada arguably is not as culturaly defined. It's almost a culture defined by what it isn't (which is a pretty pathetic way to define one's self admitedly.) We as a culturaly hegemomny try and blend American and British sensibilities with local flavours (in the praries for example with the larger eastern European populations you get a lot of their traditions, then in places like South Western Ontario the large Germanic population tends to influence their local culture.) But, Canada has had a distinctive voice artisticly both in the visual and the musical arts for decades with many bands working from Toronto and Canada and many artists calling it home. Now, as much as I hate to say this, I believe it's more of a subset of a larger North American English cultural identity then as distinct as we'd like to make it but Canada is a young country and it's still struggling to find it's voice and not be drowned out by it's very loud neighbour.

Now, that brings us to the USA. To say America doesn't have a distinctive cultural voice is just ignorant. The three major touchstones of cutlure are the literary, visual arts and musical arts. Literary tradition has some of the greatest thinkers and talents of all time hailing from the United States. You have everyone from F. Scott Fitzgerald through to John Irving to Kurt Vonnegut all speaking with uniquely American voices about uniquely American states of existence and this is just a trio of great American writters. In the visual arts you have Jackson Pollock, Steven Spielburg, Annie Libovitz but to name just a few. Again all American and all culturaly difining. Finaly the tent posts of culture the performing arts, Broadway and the theatrical traditions aside which I can't speak as knowledgably about, look at music. Rock Music is an American invention, this is something that extended out of the Country Music movement of the fifties and sixties with artists like Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly creating an entire new voice. Black artists were the source of much of the inspiration but it was an amalgum that could happen no where else in the world. And in fact bands like The Beatles would not have existed without it (John and Paul famously formed the band over their mutual love of Chuck Berry again an American artist.)

So, to say that America and Canada have no culture and that what they claim as culture is riding on the backs of other ethnicities and cultural groups is disengenious and a falacy.

TLDR

don't worry, i read it. to bad there was a reply fail somewhere in there.

That's the longest comment I've ever seen on Joystiq.

riveting tale, chap

@ commonperson, reply FAIL!

Next time summarize your shit, or thoughts and then post it somewhere where it belongs/or somewhere where people like you that might give a shit. This is about Jack Black and his game/MTV not a place to write an essay about who deserves to be white or whatever you said ( I didn't read all that LONG crap). I like to read comments, but not crap that takes up half my 27' screen, keep it relevant and small or gtfo.

Anyway, good luck to Jack B. and I'll support him by buying Brutal Legend, the game looks sick!

@Jack hey they don't have a cap on the length of replies and if I see some one spouting crap I'm going to take them to task. There is far too little responsibility out there for the stuff coming out of people's mouths virtual or otherwise and if some one is going to say something that is ignorant or wrong or frankly just rude expect to be called on it. People feel they can say what ever they want without sourcing or proving what they say which is just poor discourse in general and the source of a lot of ignorant behaviour in it's worst incarnations.

You don't want to read what I'm writting then don't, you have that right, but I have as much a right to express my thoughts as you and since it's directly pertinent to the discussion given that it ties directly in to the response of another there you go. Any how, one thing we can agree on, we'll both be supporting the game. :-)