The Internet is about to get less weird

Dr. Demento – the radio DJ whose encyclopedic collection of new and old novelty records and rarities brought humorist musicians like Weird Al to fame – broadcast his last radio show back in 2010. For decades it had been a weekly celebration of talented weirdos and oddballs, and it helped normalize being an outsider.

[I’m assuming that most of my readership doesn’t need more of an introduction to Dr. Demento than that. You’re all the same kinds of nerds that I am, right? We all used to sneak a transistor radio under our pillow to listen to The Dr. Demento Show in bed on Sunday nights because the Funny Five countdown came on after our bedtime, didn’t we?]

By the time the show officially went off the air, it had already been dropped by many local stations and was hard to find. So you may not know that Dr. Demento has continued producing an online streaming version of his show every week since then.

When he ended the broadcast version of the show, he told NPR:

Stations that call themselves Top 40 usually play a particular style of music aimed at women aged 18 to 30, and The Dr. Demento Show, for some reason, has not tested too well in focus groups among that particular demographic.

There are exceptions, of course, and The Dr. Demento Show is for all of the exceptions of the world. And that is why I think that Internet radio is a good fit for us, because they can find us anywhere.

Occasionally over the years I’ve listened to an episode, happy to know that somehow Dr. Demento was still out there making his demented show.

Well, last week, at the end of his May 31 episode, Dr. Demento made an announcement:

I am now 84 years old and I have been doing this show for nearly 55 years, about two thirds of my life. It’s been a blast. But I have come to the decision that I need to hang up my top hat. The show you just heard is the last of my regular shows.

It had to happen eventually, and now The Dr. Demento Show is ending for good. But before he goes, the Doctor is going to have several months of special shows looking back at the show’s history.

Starting next week and continuing biweekly for the next few months, I’ll be presenting newly written and recorded retrospective shows covering my entire career as Dr. Demento, taking a deep dive into the history and the music. On alternating weeks I’ll be presenting flashback shows, covering roughly the same time period as the previous week’s retrospective.

And then there will be one last countdown.

In October, I’ll be counting down the Top 40 Songs throughout the entire 55 year history of the show, preceded by a couple other special shows you’ll be hearing more about soon.

If Dr. Demento has ever meant anything to you, now is a perfect time to dive back in. You can listen to the upcoming retrospective shows as they come out – or pick a show from the archive going back to 1970 – for just three bucks each. Or you can join the Demento Online Club for package deals on multiple episodes.

On the Official Dr. Demento Show Facebook Group – where Dr. Demento frequently engages with fans under his real name, Barret Hansen – there has been an outpouring of love for the show since the May 31 announcement.

Before we move on to the other beloved program that just announced its end, please enjoy this smattering of Dr. Demento classics:

Fun fact: The “Fish Heads” video was directed by (and features) Bill Paxton! (There are many more fun facts about that song, which could be the subject of a whole post on its own)

I could really go down a rabbit hole filling this newsletter with songs from Dr. Demento history, but you should really just go listen to the show itself!

Just two days after Dr. Demento’s announcement, Marc Maron announced that he’s ending his long-running podcast after 16 years. I used to listen to Marc Maron back in his Air America days, and was an early listener of his podcast from the beginning when he used to sneak into the Air America studios after-hours to record it.

He mostly interviewed his fellow comedians back then, and some of those early episodes were the most compelling interviews I’ve ever heard. He spoke with Robin Williams about contemplating suicide. He did a two-parter confronting Carlos Mencia about accusations of plagiarising his stand-up material. And he confronted Gallagher about doing racist and homophobic material, which prompted Gallagher to walk out in the middle of the interview. All of that was just in his first year or so.

Marc quickly went from niche podcaster with a cult following to a household name, drawing huge guests like Barack Obama and Paul McCartney. It’s an incredible success story as he developed the show in a still-emerging form of media and helped shape what it became. I don’t know when we’ll see anything else like that again.

It was an amazing podcast.

Aaaand that’s it for another newsletter! Thanks as always for reading, dementites and dementoids. If you have a favorite Dr. Demento memory, share it in the comments!

Until next time, stay deeee-mented!

David