This came out in 2001 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Being a rocker is tough. Being a comic may be tougher. But being a rock comic is toughest of all, judging by the laughably short list of people who do it well.
For every Spinal Tap, there’s a Green Jelly; for every Bonzo Dog, a Bloodhound Gang. So far, folk-metal fatties Tenacious D are closer to the latter than the former. And that just ain’t right. When they arrived on HBO a few years back, the D — Kyle Gass and Jack Black — were so dumb they were brilliant, like The Smothers Brothers if they were 50 pounds heavier, on bad drugs and into Ozzy instead of Guthrie. But something got lost in translating the act to vinyl. Maybe it’s that you can’t see them, or maybe it’s that the full-band tracks (featuring Dave Grohl and other MTV rockers) ruin the acoustic-guitar nerdishness that fed the humour. Or maybe they just choked. Whatever. All I know is these jokes are sophomoric and unoriginal (a drive-thru skit?) and with the exception of the meta-track Tribute and the wide-eyed Wonderboy, the songs are half-baked and forgettable. Good thing they’re tenacious.
