The "Channel One Evening News" skit and its tagline, 'Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow,' was the inspiration for "Weekend Update" on Saturday Night Live (1975). Chevy Chase, the original Weekend Update anchorman, was featured in this film, although Ken Shapiro plays the Channel One anchorman in the movie.
The DVD sleeve notes state that this movie was a prototype for Saturday Night Live (1975) and a predecessor to Made in USA (1977).
A PG-rated version of this movie was later released on a double bill with a similarly cut Made in USA (1977).
According to "Virgin Film Guide", this was an outgrowth of 'Channel One', an off-Broadway experimental multimedia theater formed in 1967 by Ken Shapiro, Lane Sarasohn, and Chevy Chase (who left early on and was replaced by Richard Belzer). Instead of performing live, they videotaped parodies of TV and showed them in a ratty theater in Greenwich Village. After touring a collection of Channel One's best bits to colleges, Shapiro transferred them to film and assembled the movie.