Saturday, January 28, 2023

The Groove Tube

The Groove Tube (1974)

Runtime: 75 minutes

Directed by: Ken Shapiro

Starring: Shapiro, various actors I haven’t heard of… along with Chevy Chase in his movie debut and Richard Belzer!

From: Syn-Frank Enterprises/K.S. Productions

It wasn’t the plan beforehand but on another site after I mentioned my viewing of The Kentucky Fried Movie, more than one person asked "Will you be watching other similar sketch comedy films of the era?" My response was, “I probably should.” Nothing’s on the agenda for the next few days so might as well.

The most famous aspect is that this featured two performers who would soon become much more famous: Richard Belzer and Chevy Chase. Lord is the movie ever uneven, captivated by sex/nudity, filled with off-color moments (including both brownface and blackface in the same segment, regrettably; if you ever wanted to see Belzer as a black woman for 30 seconds…) and like how KFM has a 32 minute segment, this has an almost 20 minute segment featuring director Ken Shapiro and Belzer as drug dealers. For something only 70 minutes before the end credits, “padded” is a term I can use more than once for something that mainly revolves around parody of TV shows & commercials.

Yet, this still inspired enough chuckles and laughs where overall I can’t say this was bad. For those that like “shocking” humor and wishes current comedy is “safe” and “not woke”-I won’t say where I stand in this debate! I know better than to declare my beliefs concerning such a controversial topic-then some moments will greatly fulfill that need. Admittedly, I may have been swayed by the opening 8 or so minutes in a movie that is wildly uneven but for me that was enough for this to just get a passing grade.

The Dawn of Man segment in 2001: A Space Odyssey is spoofed-the punchline I dare not spoil. After that are brief opening credits, and much to my shock the strains of Curtis Mayfield’s Move on Up is heard. Then… the hominids from the first few minutes are shown dancing to the song! It is a stone-cold classic, so understandable. Then, the song keeps playing through the next segment, which is a few minutes of a hippie girl in a Volkswagen Beetle convertible picking up a male hitchhiker hippie, which ends in both stark-naked then another punchline which won’t be revealed.

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