[2] Directed by William A. Levey, the film features many television stars from the 1960s and 1970s, among them Scott Baio, Flip Wilson, Maureen McCormick, Ron Palillo and Ruth Buzzi.

One evening at a Los Angeles roller disco called Skatetown, U.S.A., a rivalry between two skaters culminates in a contest, the winning prize for which is $1,000 and a moped.

The film includes many short, broadly comedic and slapstick subplots set between long roller skating sequences and musical performances.

Its sprawling blond hardwood dance floor, chandeliers and soap bubbles blown by a machine from the Lawrence Welk Show can be seen in sundry scenes.

April Allen, Swayze's uncredited roller-skating partner in the movie, had won the world championship in women's free skating seven years earlier.

McCormick wrote that she fell back into severe cocaine addiction during production, often showing up late for shooting or not coming to work at all.

Most of this music is diegetic, in that it is shown within the plot as being played either through records spun by the roller disco's "wizard" DJ or performed on the club's stage and hence, is heard by both the characters and the movie's audience.

[8][better source needed] Among other songs on the soundtrack are the dance hit "Born to Be Alive" by Patrick Hernandez, "Boogie Wonderland" (Earth, Wind & Fire and The Emotions), "Shake Your Body" (The Jacksons), "Boogie Nights" (Heatwave), "Baby Hold On" (Eddie Money), "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now" (McFadden & Whitehead), "I Want You to Want Me" (Cheap Trick), "Roller Girl" (John Sebastian), "Perfect Dancer" (Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr.), "Disco Nights (Rock-Freak)" by GQ, a cover of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' "Under My Thumb" by the Hounds, and "Skatetown U.S.A." (John Beal) during the end credits.

By the early 21st century a writer for oddculture.com called the film "a true cult item and one of the best 70s time capsules around...There's just something magical about a slutty Marsha [sic] eating drugged pizza with a bearded Horshack".

[14] On March 6, 2019, a 35mm print was screened for the first time in years at Los Angeles' New Beverly Cinema on a double bill with Roller Boogie.