Sadly Over-hyped

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Much of Groove Tube is satirical so it would be nice for the viewer to have as many personal references, as possible, to that which is being satirized.There is no way to fully appreciate Kramp Easy Lube's kitchen segment unless you had to endure the original Kraft recipe TV segments. Shapiro's "way too calm" narration and hand movements are classic but the ridiculous directions are mostly funny because none of us could follow Kraft's original directions either.I give credit to those younger people that see the creativity in this film but I understand where many don't get it."Trying to tell a stranger 'bout rock and roll".As to Mr. Shapiro, I, too, have wondered for years how a perfect successor to Mad Magazine, and predecessor to SNL, can just drop off the map of creative irreverence. Maybe I don't want to know.In any case, Ken Shapiro's genius lives on in the digital world and this old baby boomer is grateful.

"The Groove Tube" was one of only two Ken Shapiro movies, the other one being the equally zany "Modern Problems". This one is just a full-scale parody of TV. Aside from Shapiro - who apparently didn't do anything after "Modern Problems" - the movie also stars Chevy Chase and Henry Winkler's cousin Richard Belzer. The three cast members (plus some other people in smaller roles) appear in various skits. One of the funniest ones features Chase in a Geritol-spoofing commercial, in which he's describing the medicine as his wife strips, and it ends with her humping him. There's also a pornographic news program, an irritating cooking show, and the epic tale of some drug dealers.Anyway, the whole thing's just a real hoot. In my opinion, the three best TV-spoofing movies are this one, plus "Tunnelvision" and "Kentucky Fried Movie" (although I might also include "The Truman Show"). Really funny.I wonder what ever did become of Ken Shapiro.

Remember when Robert Morse danced down the middle of a Manhattan street in HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING weaving between the other pedestrians? There is a sequence in this movie that mimics that and it's about the most hysterical thing in the film. Another sequence that is pretty good and inventive is the WATERGATE hearings done to a jazzy accompanying score. The rest of the film is spotty at best: some parts you may find funny while others you may find fall flat like a pancake. It's one of those types of movies you really have to be in the mood to see. It's offensive, obnoxious, weird, strange, bizarre and totally off the wall. Maybe the screenwriter was stoned when he wrote the movie and maybe even when he directed it. Cameo appearances are made by Chevy Chase and Richard Belzer (both are fairly funny in their individual bits). I howled at Belzer's Puerto Rican accent! A spoof of everything TV, Laugh-In style but not as funny; would make a great double feature with the uncut version of FLESH GORDON.

You know what they say about the 70's..if you can remember them you weren't there. One of the few things I do remember about the 70's was the very first hippie and hip social satire as seen from a totally 'underground'or counter-culture perspective..The Groove Tube. If the humor seems faded or witless now to some viewers it can only be because a lot has happened in the last 30 years and the comedy isn't 'fresh' anymore..but hey! When this movie came out it was a first..and some of these skits were being done for the very first time...at a time when Nixon was in office, the Vietnam war was raging, the sexual revolution was in full swing..and J.Edgar Hoover was still in charge of the FBI. This is a film made before Watergate broke and as such it was one of the first to take a big swipe at the establishment..to make fun of it and the hippies at the same time. And frankly, some skits are still dead funny. If you liked Cheech and Chong's "Up In Smoke"..you will LOVE this film.If you want to know what the 70's were really like..check out the Groove Tube.. if you liked the Oscar winning "Network" from about the same year and thought it was right on the mark in its savage look at TV, you will dig the Groove Tube..which picks up on the theme but plays from the angle of the viewers...the young viewers who were turning off the TV in favor of other entertainments.... We had been raised on Ozzie & Harriet "Leave It to Beaver", Father Knows Best, My Three Sons..Happy Days...so imagine our glee when those of us who were experimenting with the new life-styles got to see a send up of the box as seen from our perspective! The commercials by the Uranus corporation alone are priceless.."Good things come from Uranus"....and the sudden break from straight film into Fritz the Cat-style animation when the hippies eat the weed is still one of the best segues in and out of sanity i have ever seen on film.If you liked the Kentucky Fried Movie, you will LOVE this film. And if you ever wondered why your weird uncle Harold still gets a wicked gleam in his eye when thinking back to his college days..this would be the perfect film to watch.Take it for what it is..a memento of the times...and a sassy little film that will help all of us who did forget the 70's to remember them anew.