Tenacious D’s Trump gag may not have been the best joke in the world, but that’s what comedy is all about

Let’s get this out of the way: we shouldn’t be wishing politicians, of any sort, dead. We shouldn’t be wishing anyone dead.

We shouldn’t be gleeful about attempted assassinations, or create an environment where political violence is normalised or celebrated, regardless of our ideological differences.

All of that, frankly, should go without saying. That I have to clarify it at all speaks to how toxic and volatile this particular conversation has become.

That toxicity explains why comedy superstar Jack Black did a hasty backpedal this week after his bandmate, Kyle Gass, made an off-the-cuff joke about the assassination attempt on former President Trump. The two actors were onstage in Sydney, just hours after the attempt on Trump’s life, performing as their comedy rock band, Tenacious D.

Black presented Gass with a cake to mark his birthday and asked him to make a wish. Gass, an experienced improv comic, replied without hesitation — "don’t miss Trump next time". Fan-shot footage shows the line getting a huge laugh from the audience, and even from Black himself.

The reaction was predictable and instantaneous. Trump supporters called for the duo’s careers to be ruined. The name "Jack Black" started trending on X (formerly Twitter) with a huge number of reactive posts incorrectly assuming the comment had come from him.

Less predictable is what happened next. In the face of the outcry, Black released a statement cancelling the rest of the duo’s tour and putting "all creative projects" on hold. "I was blindsided by what was said at the show on Sunday," he said on Instagram, "I would never condone hate speech or encourage political violence in any form." Gass also apologised, calling his "improvised joke" a "highly inappropriate, dangerous and terrible mistake."

It speaks volumes about how volatile the atmosphere in the US is right now, that the pair had to essentially perform an emergency self-cancellation off the back of an off-the-cuff gag. Jack Black, after all, has a massive Hollywood career to think of.

I don’t agree with Gass’s line, obviously, but I do have some sympathy with him. As a comedian myself, I understand how a comic’s brain works on stage. You’ve trained yourself to think fast — at lightning speeds. A comic in full performance mode has almost no filter between their thought process and their mouth, which often seems to run on its own with conscious thought lagging a few seconds behind. There is a direct interface between the subconscious comic mind and the active comic tongue. There has to be – a second’s hesitation onstage can lose you the audience, while tossing a joke out at hyper speed will always impress.

This wasn’t a scripted or rehearsed line. It wasn’t a "bit". I don’t believe it’s what Gass actually believes, either. He’d never have said that if he’d had a moment’s thought. He had a theatre full of people in front of him, and he was reaching for the laugh. That’s what we do. The audience understands that there’s a difference between live and scripted comedy. There’s a difference between cheap, get-the-laugh asides, and the obsessively sculpted shape of a stand-up’s routine – or, indeed, one of Tenacious D’s songs or skits.

Unfortunately, in the age of social media, when every audience member has an instant outside-broadcast unit in their pocket, that context changes, and we’re forced to consider such gone-in-an-instant moments in the harsh light of day. Such jokes rarely stand up to that sort of scrutiny.

Humour is a processing tool and a survival instinct. We make jokes like Kyle Gass’s, not because we really believe them, but because sometimes the world is so awful that breaking the tension by saying something stupid is all we can do. The real danger doesn’t come from the remarks we make off the top of our heads – they come from the ones we consider. Gass’s gag wasn’t political rhetoric or ideology. It wasn’t a call to arms or a call for death. It was, merely, dumb. And that’s okay.

While this incident raises important questions about the nature of live comedy, the power of social media to amplify momentary lapses, and the increasingly fraught relationship between humour and politics, we have to remember that context matters, intent matters, and above all, that laughter – even if occasionally misguided – remains a vital part of how we process the world around us.