Customer Reviews

The Groove Tube

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Gross, outdated, crude, disgusting, a little drawn out in spots, and one of the funniest films ever! Mostly carried by Ken Shapiro & Richard Belzer, the film blasts away typical TV programming in rapid funny fashion. From the hilarious 2001 opening spoof to the Koko the clown sketch, the dealers (which hangs on too long after the great movie theatre scene), the News, the olympics, and safety sam, it's pure fun. One other recurring performer is Chevy Chase in the Geritan commercial, one of the highpoints of the film, as well as the fingers, and a quirky rendition of Four Leaf Clover. It's no Academy Award winner, and it isn't as clever or classy as SNL, but it's good for gross-out humor lovers. It's a classic that has been followed by, or in some cases imitated by Tunnelvision, Kentucky Fried Movie and Amazon Women On The Moon. Check it out!

I first saw this movie about five years ago with a friend who had just had surgery. She nearly busted her stitches out. You will not laugh harder than when this movie hits its target. There are some sketches that miss their target, but overall, it is really funny, and best of all there are several different levels of humor, if you like slapstick, there is plenty here. If you are more intellectual, and like irony, this movie has that, too. I just bought it and it is even better now that I am a little older and get some of the references. Check out "Brown 25," "The Dealers," and "Koko the Clown." These three, especially should have you near tears.

This movie is wrong in every aspected of the word. This Shapiro masterpiece summarizes the 70's in a nut shell. From Beggining to end it is parody genius at its best. "Move on up" by Curtis Mayfield is a perfect song for this movie. From the first scetch about the hitchhiker, the Koko show, the Dealers, Kramp TV kitchen, "Safty Sam" vanareal disease awareness (the men might want to leave the room during this scene), and the evening news. Not to mention the commercial parodies and plain 70's commentary. This movie is one to be enjoy in every household and enjoyed many times over and over again. Ever time i have seen this movie it keeps getting better and better revealing its underling humor. This guy Ken Shapiro is probably in a cave or jail or his own private island, maybe a combination of each. This is comedy at its best.

Oh...........where do I begin. Just one of the most nasty,raunchy funny as hell movies. Between the Talking,"package" warning you about VD and other diseases you could contract...as if he had some experence with the subject! And lets not forget Koko the clown,...that caught me of guard...jees...a clown reading the most raunchy part of a romance novel, and the sex olempics,... MY GOD! Great movie if you love SNL type skits,NUDE WOMEN,twisted humor and as a bonus you get to see some of your favorite stars (Richard Belzer, Chevy Chase) before they were household names. Highly recomended!*****

THE GROOVE TUBE has been on my wish list of movies to own since I first saw it as a child. I guess I was around 12 at the time of my first viewing and the grainy quality of the video transfer gave the flick a kid of "forbiden fruit" quality. Upon finding it again all these years later I was surprised how well the thing holds up. Some of the stuff is pretty dated-that "Dealers" routine goes on for waaaaaay too long (although I must admit the punchline is just weird enough to make it worthwhile). Shapiro ends up with a highly influencial and successful film at the end of the day. Many of the skits are laugh out loud funny and give the audience enough credit to catch a D.H. Lawrence joke. There is a good bit of talent and creativity that went into this. Plus it was the first and one of the best of those "short attention span comedies" made so popular by the Zucker Bros... And this sucker is going to have a longer shelf life than that stinker. Mark my words your kids ain't gonna find that referential piece o' poop too funny in the coming years! But this one might just stick around. Don't expect it to turn up on Turner Classic Movies anytime soon. There are too many bush shots.

View sober at your own risk!!! The skits involved are hilarious. Everyone who's ever seen it is in tears by the end of the "Kraft" baking scene. Get together a group of friends and watch this video!!! It's for a group ready to laugh.

Ken Shapiro's movie is comedic genius.

If you're old enough to remember Ed Herlihy's voiceovers for the Kraft Kitchen bits on Perry Como, the Kramp Kitchen hits home. The rock steady voiceover, the ridiculous recipe and Shapiro's frenetic hands are so funny that I have to turn away to catch my breath.

Granted that this isn't a slick comedy by today's standards but it is very original and hilarious to the right viewer.
By the way, for the Kentucky Fried Movie fans, it probably isn't an accident that KFM came out three years after Groove Tube.

Note to Mr. Shapiro - wherever you are, Thanks for the Laughs!

This is one of my all time favorite movies,I first watched this movie in 1984?it was on a movie channel and I was compleatly fascinated with it!!!From the first naked boy skit to the rest of the classics,My eyes completely bullged at how muny and exciting and interesting this was!!!This movie greatly inspired me with my own local t.v. comedy sketch show I did on a local station,back in 1993!!!

I'll probably revise this later because it's been many years since I saw this. But back in the 70's this was a late night and drive in favorite. Like I said I haven't seen it for many years and I'm guessing that it's probably not as funny as it used to be afer a few tokes, but I think it'll still be worth a watch because this was the beginning of the kind of humor we found later in SNL. Much of the humor is subtle and can easily go over your head if you're not aware of what's going on, but if you are then there's a lot of fun here. In fact I still remember having to take a second look at the end VD talk to realize what that puppet actually was...It was the absurdity that made it so funny....

While the comedy is still sophomoric at times, this sketch-filled movie hits its mark more than it misses. I still laugh at some of the material 25+ years after I first saw it. Other stuff that was fresh then has been ripped off and redone so many times it seems stale now.

The biggest dissapointment was with the DVD itself. No book, no added features. Just the movie. The quality was not really enhanced either. Stick with the VHS unless you have to be able to skip from scene to scene right away.