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The Groove Tube

The Groove Tube
The Groove Tube.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Ken Shapiro
Produced by Ken Shapiro
Written by Ken Shapiro
Lane Sarasohn
Rich Allen
Starring Ken Shapiro
Richard Belzer
Chevy Chase
Cinematography Bob Bailin
Edited by Gary Youngman
Distributed by Levitt-Pickman
Release date
  • June 23, 1974 (1974-06-23) (New York City)
  • July 24, 1974 (1974-07-24) (San Francisco)
Running time
75 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $200,000
Box office $20,447,000

The Groove Tube is a 1974 American Independent comedy film written and produced by Ken Shapiro and starring Shapiro, Richard Belzer and Chevy Chase. It features the song Move On Up by Curtis Mayfield in its opening scene.

The low-budget movie satirizes television and the counterculture of the early 1970s. The film was originally produced to be shown at the Channel One Theater on East 60th St. in New York, a venue that featured R-rated video recordings shown on three television sets, which was a novelty to the audiences of the time. The news desk satire, including the signature line "Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow" was later used by Chase for his signature Weekend Update piece on Saturday Night Live, although in the film he does not appear in that segment.

Among the skits are:

Several spoof TV commercials are featured, including a few for the fictional Uranus Corporation (pronounced with the stress on the second and third syllables). One Uranus commercial touts the amazing properties of its space-age polymer product "Brown 25" (which looks suspiciously like human feces): "It has the strength of steel, the flexibility of rubber, and the nutritional value of beef stew."

The Groove Tube was originally released with an X rating.


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