“Dr. Demento” Barry Hansen was honored by the National Radio Hall of Fame in November 2009 and shortly thereafter left his longtime broadcast syndication gig. But Richard Wagoner at the L.A. Daily News finds the good doctor of novelty records “still producing a new show every week” – online. A single dose of the doctor’s humor will cost $2, or you can go for a monthly or yearly subscription. Hansen’s show had a lot to with discovering talents like “Weird Al” Yankovic and making gifted satirists like Tom Lehrer available to new audiences. If you read Mad magazine under the covers at night, you probably made it a point to tune in Dr. Demento.
One of the biggest thrills of my radio career (and I'm not kidding about this) was the first time one of my songs was played on the Dr. Demento show. Stan Lawrence and I did a few parody songs during the days of Ebony & Ivory, and Dr. Demento kindly played them on his nationwide show. I still have the LP of the first one (the show was played on a record in those days), and the CD of the second one.
Many more songs I wrote for other radio shows were played by him in the years after that, but those first two were really a big thrill because I was one of those kids who read Mad Magazine and listened to Dr. Demento. (He was even on Armed Forces Radio in Germany when I lived there).
Glad to hear he's still going strong.
