Disco Beaver from Outer Space (1979)

Primary Genre: Comedy

Secondary Genres: Parody, omnibus movie

Plot: While an unseen couple bicker about what to watch on TV, a TV screen flips through channels with various shows and movies, including

• Disco Beaver from Outer Space
• Dragula:Queen of Darkness
• A cable TV channel movie guide
• A NY Islanders game with offbeat commentary
• A woman confessing how she became a late 1970s urban lifestyle addict (Perrier was the gateway drug!)
• And others

The Good Stuff: This is an omnibus program (several short stories with an interconnected framework, what some people might call an “anthology movie”).  It’s hit or miss, and if you're not entertained by a particular segment, just wait or Fast Fwd.

The Bad Stuff: 

• Sounds like Comedy: This was made not long after National Lampoon had produced things like the Lemmings comedy album and The National Lampoon Radio Hour.  A lot of the comedy here might have worked better as just audio rather than a videotaped skits.
• Very disposable.  (Note: There’s nothing wrong, in and of itself, with entertainment being disposable, but disposable entertainment is made for immediate consumption, not for later.)  This program frequently relies on running gags and cultural references from the late 70s that would be lost upon modern audiences.

The Who Cares Stuff:

• 
  The "Origin" of Dragula: The "Dragula" story had originally appeared in National Lampoon magazine about seven years earlier as a short comic book parody written by Tony Hendra and illustrated by Frank Frazetta (cover) and Neal Adams (content). (Not to be confused with the drag race car in Munsters Go Home, but we digress....)
• Straight to Cable: This video didn't get a theatrical release and went straight-to-cable before "straight to cable" became a common indicator that a program had a distinctly limited audience.  (Nowadays we might say "straight to video" or "straight to DVD (or Blu-ray)".)

See Also:

• The Groove Tube
• Kentucky Fried Movie
• National Lampoon’s Movie Madness

The Bottom Line: Disposable, hit-or-miss omnibus parody video from National Lampoon. As with the magazine, not for all tastes, and modern audiences might be offended by some content and not get several of the references.  Recommended for old people feeling nostalgic about the late 70s.