Dr. Demento

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Dr. Demento
(Barret Hansen)
American radio personality Dr. Demento
(Barret Hansen)
Born April 2, 1941 (age 66)
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Dr. Demento (born April 2, 1941, in Minneapolis, Minnesota) is the stage name of Barret Eugene Hansen [1], a radio disc jockey specializing in novelty songs and pop music parodies. He created the persona in 1970 while working at Los Angeles station KPPC-FM [1]. After Hansen played "Transfusion" by Nervous Norvus on the radio, DJ Steven Clean said that Hansen had to be "demented" to play that. Thereafter, the name stuck. His weekly show went into syndication in 1974 [1] and from 1978-1992 was syndicated by the Westwood One Radio Networks. It is still on the air as of 2007.

To some people, he is best known as the man who brought rock parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic to national attention (and appeared in a number of Weird Al's music videos). Hansen also played a role in the success of Elmo and Patsy's 1979 Christmas song "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" and the continuing success of Bobby "Boris" Pickett's "Monster Mash".

Hansen was born the son of an amateur pianist and claims to have started his vast record collection as early as age 12, when he found "that a local thrift store had thousands of old 78 RPM records for sale at 5 cents each" [1]. He attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where he wrote his senior thesis on Wagnerian opera, graduating in 1963, and later studying at UCLA, from which he earned a master's degree in folklore and ethnomusicology. After graduating from college in 1963, Barry bought a Vespa scooter and toured the U.S., particularly the American South, where he witnessed first-hand some of the prejudice that was being perpetrated upon American Blacks at the time. He landed in Los Angeles, California, attended UCLA and lived 'in a big house on a hill' in Laurel Canyon with members of the rock band Spirit ("Fresh Garbage" was a hit for them). He also lived briefly with Canned Heat and John Mayall, and was a roadie for some of those groups at times. John Mayall mentions this era on his album "Blues from Laurel Canyon" in the song "The Bear."

Hansen was married to his wife Sue on November 26, 1983, in Los Angeles, CA.

Hansen has developed a particular interest in the roots of rock 'n' roll in R&B and country music, and he has written about it in many magazine articles, liner notes to compilations and new recordings by a variety of artists, and two chapters on early R&B for The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll. His shows and public appearances display an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of recorded music in general, from the earliest Edison cylinder recordings onward.

Dr. Demento was inducted into the Comedy Music Hall Of Fame in June of 2005 [2].

The Dr. Demento Show is syndicated by an organization called Talonian Productions, which seems to have no trace of existence outside of this particular show. It airs for two hours weekly, usually on a Sunday night, although stations are free to air the show whenever they please. In August 2006, Talonian announced that the show was losing money and that the free barter system that they had been using to distribute the show would be replaced by rights fees. Furthermore, in order to encourage fans to officially purchase the ability to listen to network-provided internet streams of the show, Talonian has made an attempt to stop all Internet streaming of the show by its affiliates (and in at least one case, WQMA, stopped providing the show to the station for that reason). However, there are still a handful of stations that continue to stream the show.

Contents

[edit] Trivia

At the end of each year on his syndicated radio show, he counts down the top 25 comedy hits of the year. (From 1972-1982, he also did a year-end top 50 countdown for his four-hour live show on KMET in Los Angeles, plus a separate pre-taped top 50 in 1979 for KSAN in San Francisco.) The chart is based on requests, so it's not unheard of for classic comedy songs to appear on the chart for many years in a row. Despite that, there have only been 3 instances of the same artist repeating at the #1 spot with different tunes 2 years in a row.

1980 - Another One Rides The Bus
1981 - Yoda (Original Demo Version)
2002 - Peter Parker
2003 - Stealing Like A Hobbit
2004 - Great Idea For A Song
2005 - Inner Voice (as guest vocals for Sudden Death)

Furthermore, Ogden Edsl hit #1 in 1982 and 1983 with the same song, Dead Puppies

  • On hunting themed shows, Dr. Demento features the song "Second Week of Deer Camp" by Michigan comedy music group Da Yoopers.

[edit] References in pop culture

In The Simpsons episode "Sideshow Bob Roberts", Bart's two mortal enemies are revealed to be Sideshow Bob and, without any earlier or later explanation of this claim, Dr. Demento.

In the King of the Hill episode "Texas City Twister", Peggy tells Luanne that they had "better get on the road before that Dr. Demento starts stinking up the airwaves". Later, Spike Jones' "Cocktails for Two" is heard on the car radio.[1]

On the TV show Bobby's World, Bobby imagines that the doctor he will be seeing the next day is none other than Dr. Demento.

In the Mr. Show episode "Eat Shitty Fruit From A Rotten Tree", the character of "Dr. Retarded" is a novelty record collector and "Chief Head of Surgery, Mass General."

[edit] Affiliates list

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d "About The Dr." The Online Internet Site For Information on Dr. Demento music, songs, lyrics, and chat. 2005. 03 Mar. 2006 <http://www.drdemento.com/dr-bio.html>.
  2. ^ "Comedy Music Hall of Fame." Comedy Music Hall of Fame. 2005. 03 Mar. 2006 <http://www.comedymusichalloffame.com/>.

[edit] External links

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