DETROIT — Forces — and achromatic colors — collide when Jack Black and Jack White meet up on this week's "Saturday Night Live."

Black is the host, White — "my brother from another color," Black says in a promo video for the episode — is the musical guest. The two Jacks have orbited each other in the culture since both rose to fame in the early '00s, and have come together several times in the public eye.

Legend has it these two first met up at MTV's Video Music Awards in 2006, when Black was the host and White's band the Raconteurs served as the show's house band.

"You guys, you know what I just realized? Jack Black, Jack White, we're like two sides of the same coin. We should start a band, what do you say Jack Whiiiiite?" Black said at the close of the Raconteurs' performance of "Blue Veins," addressing White, who looked nonplussed at the offer.

"I think he's into it," Black said. "He's playing it cool, but I think he's into it."

Black then introduced the White Stripes at a Los Angeles concert in 2007, but the pair's first on-the-record collaboration didn't occur until 2019, when Black's comic rock band Tenacious D recorded a song for White's Third Man Records.

The collaboration was initially teased in a video Black uploaded to his Jablinski Games YouTube channel, titled "Jack Gray." In the video, Black is seen touring White's Third Man Records headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, and White greets Black with a warm hug.

The resulting song from their Third Man session, "Don't Blow It, Kage," was released in November 2019 and features a spoken word cameo from White, who suggests starting a band on the spot with Black's Tenacious D partner, Kyle Gass.

"Kage, that was the best guitar solo I've ever heard in my life. Do you want to start a band with me right now?" White asks, once again keeping the combined powers of Black and White at bay.

In a 2025 interview with The Detroit News, Black spoke briefly of White, saying White once came out and hung out with Tenacious D prior to a concert in Detroit. (A timeline of Tenacious D's Detroit concerts makes their November 2006 show at the Masonic Temple the most likely candidate for this meet-up.)

When he and White come together, "dude, it's dangerous. It could create a rip in the space-time continuum," Black joked to The News. "He is a friend, but he's also my sworn enemy. Because we are opposites in many ways."

What's in store for their "SNL" episode remains to be seen.

It will mark Black's fifth time hosting; he previously hosted in January 2002 (with musical guest the Strokes), October 2003 (with John Mayer), December 2005 (with Neil Young) and April 2025 (with Elton John and Brandi Carlile).

It will be White's sixth time on the show, and fifth as a solo performer.

He made his first appearance on the show, as a White Stripe, in October 2002 (with host John McCain), and performed solo duties in March 2012 (with Lindsay Lohan), April 2018 (with John Mulaney), October 2020 (with Bill Burr) and in February 2023 (with Woody Harrelson).

"Saturday Night Live" airs at 11:30 p.m. ET Saturday on NBC.

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