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No more house calls from Dr. Demento as he retires after 55 years

He really was a pioneer and perhaps the last connection to what FM radio was like before it became popular & commercial.

www.yahoo.com

Iconic Radio DJ Makes Major Announcement After Legendary 55-Year Career

The man who launched 'Weird Al's career has some news!
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com

The only other one still living might be Vince Scelsa, but he retired ten years ago.

I've heard several versions of the story of how Weird Al Yankovic got to know Demento. One was that Al got a job in the mail room at Demento's LA radio station, and waited around to meet him. Then he played some home-made tapes he had been working on. That led to a guest shot on the show.


We all know what happened next. Young Alfred became Weird Al, and sold millions of records.
 
:cry:

One of my earliest, fondest radio memories and heroes a kid. I had (irrationally) hoped he would go on forever, but the man has certainly earned a wonderful retirement.

Here's hoping his archives remain online in perpetuity, somehow, for future generations to discover and enjoy.
 
I very much enjoyed Dr. Demento's network show since I was little. The music he played, though sometimes considered "immature" by some older folks, was funny in its own sort of way and often made fun of the cariacatures we made of others. Sadly, in today's highly polarized U.S. society, I really don't see a place for the style of show that Mr. Hanson did, except for perhaps some younger baby boomers like myself.
 
I didn't listen for that many years. I happened to live near the one rock station left in the Charlotte area when the other rock station went CHR. It couldn't even really be heard in much of the Charlotte area. But it did have this show, and I knew about it because of the stories about Weird Al. For some reason, the FM started doing the same AC music as the AM, but kept the show. Another FM in the area had gotten the message people wanted rock, and had a stronger signal too, so I guess that's the reason. The AM kept doing it after the FM moved to Charlotte as a beautiful music station. Then I moved out of the area.
 
His show bounced around between several stations in my area, almost always late Sunday night with no one running it for very long (couple years, tops). Mostly rock stations. I enjoyed it, but I'm guessing it was too much of a departure from normal programming for most listeners to appreciate.
 
I was listening to Dr. D on KMET here in Los Angeles when I was in high school. (Boy, does that date me.)
 
Alan Smithee said:
There needs to be a station with this type of stuff as the entire format!
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Probably wouldn't work (other than a pre-format flip stunt) on terrestrial radio. Would probably get some interest as a standalone stream or a SiriusXM channel.

Perhaps someone should try to get Dr. D to consider that, or at the very least leave his library of shows in his will to someone who could make that happen.
 
K.M. Richards said:
Probably wouldn't work (other than a pre-format flip stunt) on terrestrial radio. Would probably get some interest as a standalone stream or a SiriusXM channel.

Perhaps someone should try to get Dr. D to consider that, or at the very least leave his library of shows in his will to someone who could make that happen.
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Pre-merger XM HAD such a channel "Special X". it had a very small but extremely loyal audience that to this day nearly two decades later will pop up out of the woodwork begging for its return. With all the streaming channels available for it and pop-ups they do, I am amazed it hasn't been brought back at least for a short run.
 
lanceventa said:
Pre-merger XM HAD such a channel "Special X". it had a very small but extremely loyal audience that to this day nearly two decades later will pop up out of the woodwork begging for its return. With all the streaming channels available for it and pop-ups they do, I am amazed it hasn't been brought back at least for a short run.
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For a period of time in the early 2000s, Dr. Demento allowed paid access to his shows through his own website. In addition, airchecks of some of his shows have surfaced at youtube.com, archive.org and (for those who pay) reelradio.com.

youtube.com also has most of the last local show Dr. Demento did on KPPC in Pasadena in (if I remember correctly) 1971. Because my bedtime was 7:30pm every evening, I never got to hear the original show live so hearing the aircheck on youtube.com was both a hoot and an eye-opener. For while Dr. Demento became known for playing off-the-wall comedy releases, his shows on KPPC (per that aircheck) were a mix of the comedy recordings he became known for later and a lot of mor traditional (though mostly non-commercial) musics including old blues records from the 1940s and 1950s.
 
ted chittenden said:
In addition, airchecks of some of his shows have surfaced at youtube.com, archive.org and (for those who pay) reelradio.com.
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I have to correct you on another point, Ted. After Richard "Uncle Ricky" Irwin passed away, the ReelRadio site became free access with donations, but one still has to register for a free account if they didn't have one during the pay years.
 
K.M. Richards said:
I was listening to Dr. D on KMET here in Los Angeles when I was in high school. (Boy, does that date me.)
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I listened on KINK when it was still Progressive and Portland was probably one of the original affiliates. Dr. Demento had been the program director of the Reed College station and thus, a local tie-in!
 
semoochie said:
I listened on KINK when it was still Progressive and Portland was probably one of the original affiliates. Dr. Demento had been the program director of the Reed College station and thus, a local tie-in!
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That would still have been later than my personal timeline. He started the show in 1970 on KPPC-FM (now KROQ) and moved to KMET one year later, which coincided with my high school years of 1971-74.

1974 was the first year that it was syndicated, so unless he had a special arrangement with KINK, it would not have been earlier than that.
 
Oldbones said:
ted chittenden said:
For a period of time in the early 2000s, Dr. Demento allowed paid access to his shows through his own website.
Click to expand...
Still appears to be the case. I didn't try to purchase any shows, but his website still shows them as available.
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More than "for a period of time." Demento never stopped doing his weekly shows after leaving terrestrial radio. He simply switched directly to doing them online at drdemento.com, and he has continued doing them there each week right up to today. The archives K.M.R. says appear to still be available not only are still available, they're actively maintained. They contain not only every show Demento has done since moving online, but also full untelescoped airchecks of the majority of shows he did during his terrestrial radio timeline. New archival tapes of those broadcasts continue being digitized and added to the archives weekly. And those archival tapes consist not only of the syndicated versions of his broadcasts, but of the special live KMET / KLSX / KSCA versions he did just for Los Angeles listeners (which tended to have slightly customized playlists versus their syndicated counterparts -- customized to eliminate a certain percentage of the tacky, cornball stuff in favor of more refined and/or risque things).

The unabridged playlists for every broadcast ever done, from Demento's roots through today, can also be seen (and searched) at dmdb.org, which is an independently-run fan site whose owner knows Barry and gets each week's playlist info directly from him. The site's owner has been running it for decades -- it's very retro HTML 1.0, and he's also done tons of his own past research crowdsourcing additional playlist data that Demento himself no longer had from fans with their own airchecks.

All totaled, between those two sites, you can pretty much revisit everything Dr. Demento has ever done.

Edit:

* Direct link to his complete playlist history: https://dmdb.org/playlists/

* The official list of his remaining shows and their topics, before he retires this October: https://dmdb.org/playlists/newtopics.html
 
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