The Dub Room Special is a direct-to-video production by American musician Frank Zappa made for release in October, 1982. The video combines a performance at the KCET studios in Los Angeles on August 27, 1974 with a concert performed at The Palladium, New York City on October 31, 1981, with clay animation segments by Bruce Bickford, and interviews.
The 1974 footage was originally conceived as part of the TV special A Token of His Extreme. The entire production was edited in the "Dub Room" at Compact Video, a post-production facility in Burbank, California. A few of the Compact Video staff members have brief appearances.
The initial videocassette edition was released in 1982 and was available only through Zappa's mail-order company, Barfko-Swill, which was also known by its Los Angeles phone number "818-PUMPKIN" (818-786-7546). The tape was produced in small quantities with a plain black and white typed label. Though it had a $49.98 price tag it quickly sold out. The videocassette was sold in both VHS and Beta formats. Only the Beta version contained a stereo Hi-Fi soundtrack. The VHS version had a lower quality mono soundtrack because improved audio capability had not yet been introduced to the VHS tape format.
The video was reissued on DVD on October 17, 2005 with some interview sections trimmed. In 2007 a soundtrack with the same name was released. In 2013 the original 1974 A Token Of His Extreme video was released on DVD, while the complete 1981 concert was released on DVD in 2008 as The Torture Never Stops.
The following interview sections on the original videocassette version were cut from the DVD re-issue: