As you may have heard, Barret Hansen — known far, near and wide as Dr. Demento — is hanging up his turntable. I was an avid fan of his radio program almost from the start and he started in 1970, playing records no one else on radio played. In some cases, he played records no one else had. I was a huge fan of some of the vintage stars he showcased like Stan Freberg, Spike Jones, Tom Lehrer and so many more. I collected comedy records but the good doctor’s stash of such material towered over my collection and maybe everyone’s.
When I first discovered him, I taped his show every week using a reel-to-reel tape recorder, a radio, a timer and a couple of wires that formed what now looks like a stone age VCR for audio only. When Dr. Demento played something I didn’t have in my collection — which at the start was, like, every week — I’d splice the tape of that tune onto a big reel I had. I’m sure I wasn’t the only listener who did this and I’m sure the doctor knew and approved.
He was one of the few on-air radio personalities who played records and didn’t talk over the beginning and/or end of each record. He left them clean for those of us who were recording them. Back in those pre-Internet days that was the only way I could get a copy of something he had that I wanted to have a copy of for myself.
I’ve probably since found every song I “saved” that way. He established there was a market for old Spike Jones material and there were many Dr. Demento records and CDs of stuff from his library. And these days, a lot of that material — being public domain in many cases — is downloadable from somewhere on the vast World Wide Web. In the seventies though, the only source was Doc Demento’s Sunday night broadcasts.
I got to meet him a few times. Once at one of Laraine Newman’s birthday parties, “Weird Al” Yankovic introduced me to Dr. Demento and I thought that was appropriate since Dr. Demento had introduced “Weird Al” to me and to the world. I’ve never addressed him as Barret because he seemed to be Dr. Demento in front of a microphone and away from one. But we talked about great comedy and novelty records and talk about your Walking Encyclopedias of Knowledge…
I just re-read the above and it sounds a bit funereal and it shouldn’t. The guy’s not dead. He’s just not doing his show anymore. I just wanted to salute him for doing it, doing it for so long and doing it so well. I wish him a happy retirement.
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