Dr. Demento

At 83 years old, Dr. Demento physical status not available right now. We will update Dr. Demento's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Eugene "Barry" Hansen (born April 2, 1941), also known as Dr. Antoine, was a professional footballer who played for the Barry.

Demento is an American radio broadcaster and record collector specializing in novelty songs, comedy, and rare or unusual recordings from the beginnings of phonograph records to today.

While working at KPPC-FM in Los Angeles, Hansen created the Demento doll in 1970.

On the radio, he performed "Transfusion" by Nervous Norvus, and DJ "The Obscene" Steven Clean said Hansen had to be "demented" to play it, and the name stuck.

In 1974, his weekly show went into syndication and was syndicated by the Westwood One Radio Network from 1978 to 1992.

The show's syndication ended on June 6, 2010, but in an online version, the broadcast syndication of the show remained. Hansen has a degree in ethnomusicology and has written journal articles and liner notes on recording artists outside of the novelty field.

He is credited with introducing new generations of listeners to artists of the early and middle twentieth century, including Harry McClintock, Spike Jones, Benny Bell, Yogi Yorgesson, Stan Freberg, and Tom Lehrer, as well as bringing parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic to national prominence.

Early life

Hansen was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as the son of an amateur pianist. He claims to have started his vast collection as early as age 12, when he discovered "that a local thrift store sold thousands of old 78 RPM records for sale at 5 cents each." He attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where he was promoted to Program Director of KRRC in 1960 and General Manager in 1961. He wrote his senior thesis on Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck and Claude Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande. He graduated in 1963 and then attended UCLA, where he obtained a master's degree in folklore and ethnomusicology.

He lived for two years "in a big house on a hill" in Topanga Canyon after receiving his master's degree. members of the rock band Spirit performed there for two years. He worked for Spirit and Canned Heat for a short time before being recruited as an A&R man or talent hunter for Specialty Records. While doing Specialty, the Doctor began his weekly radio show, and later worked for Warner Bros. Records. He was in charge of preparing several of Warner Bros.'s "Warner Brothers Loss Leaders" compilation albums of rock music, which featured new artists and new work from established Warner Brothers Records artists in the 1970s. These were printed on the inside sleeves of WB's new releases, and they were only available by ordering direct from WB using a coupon code stamped on the record sleeve, and were priced at $1 per LP. The majority of these releases were 2-LP sets, so they were priced at $2 at a time when a "double LP" usually went for $9.98, not to mention a $4.98 list price. He wrote numerous articles on rock music, including Rolling Stone, Downbeat, and Hit Parader, liner notes on various late-1960s and early 1970s albums, as well as contributing to Rolling Stone's "Rhythm and Gospel" chapter.

Personal life

Hansen was married to Sue Hansen (née Sue Charles) from 1983 to her death on September 10, 2017. They were childless by choice. Sue was a former clerk and training officer on the Union Pacific Railroad for a year. Hansen calls himself "an armchair railfan," and he's often sampling his extensive collection of railroad-related songs on his set.

Hansen has long been interested in the roots of rock 'n' roll in R&B and country music, and he has contributed to numerous magazine papers, liner notes to compilations and new recordings by a variety of artists, as well as two chapters on early R&B. His shows and public appearances demonstrate an encyclopedic understanding of recorded music in general, from the earliest Edison cylinder recordings to the present day.

His personal record collection outnumbers 85,000.

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Career

Hansen created Dr. Demento's persona while working at Pasadena's KPPC in 1970; [1] The enthusiastic listener response to Hansen's offbeat novelties in his rock oldies show transformed it into an all-novelty exhibition. He transferred to KMET in Los Angeles at the end of 1971. He appeared on KMET from 1972 to 1983. The local Los Angeles market was the full 4 hours from 1974 to 2000, when the nationally syndicated show was cut to 2 hours. On KLSX, the show developed to a two-hour live show, and after that station converted to a talk-only format in 1995, it migrated to KSCA, where it remained until the station was converted to a Spanish-language version in February 1997.

In 1974, his show, produced by his boss Larry Gordon of Gordon/Casady, and later on, the Westwood One Radio Network syndicated him. The Westwood One period in the show's national prominence; it was carried in most major radio markets, mainly on FM rock stations, and often late on Sunday evenings. Lynnsey Guererro, a former track star from UCLA and Senior Producer at Hansen from 1978 to 1982, was the company's producer. He gave the show to a young San Diego-based professional journalist Robert Young in 1982. The show rose in esteem under Young's leadership, mainly because of his ability to promote links with national media and with nationally known and up-and-coming artists, including John Mammoser, Judy Tenuta, Emo Philips, Pinkard and Bowden, Wally Wingert and Mark Davis (Richard Cheese). Dr. Demento was accompanied by young in Portland, Texas; San Diego, Mexico; and other cities to host live performances and PR Events, filming interviews, and even 'running the board' at some of the live shows. During a business downturn in 1990, he left the radio network. In January 2014, Young published "Producing Demento," a memoir of his time on the program.

On the Radio Broadcasting Corporation syndicated the program from 1992 to 2000. Hansen, who went by the name "Talonian Productions," handled syndication from 2000 to 2010 (although Hansen did not reveal he was Talonian until being forced to respond to significant criticism of the company in 2007). Hansen continued to do live broadcasts on KMET and other Los Angeles area radio stations in comparison to his weekly taped syndicated show. He has appeared on television shows as "The Gong Show (on the 1988-89 revival), Bobby's World, The Simpsons, and "Fish Heads" by Barnes and Barnes.

With an hour of randomly chosen songs and listener requests, the syndicated radio show usually began with an hour of randomly selected songs and listener requests. The second hour was typically devoted to a specific topic (cars, sports, pets, romance, etc.) With a final segment taken up by a "The Funny Five" countdown of the most requested songs, we'll get to the final segment. Several shows related to holidays and seasonal celebrations were also held, with the most notable being the Halloween and Christmas shows (Hansen produced several Christmas shows during the holiday season that consisted solely of novelty Christmas music). The Funny 25, a countdown of the 25 most requested novelty songs of the year, was the last radio show each year (see below). Hansen hosted 52 original weekly shows per year for the majority of the syndicated series's history; repeat broadcasts were unusual.

The show's opening theme is an instrumental interpretation of "Pico and Sepulveda" performed by The Roto Rooter Good Time Christmas Band (Clyde McCoy's "Sugar Blues" by Clyde McCoy). "It's time for number one," the Los Angeles area group performed, as "It's time for number one." Hansen's opening line, "Wind up your radios," refers to the rare 78rpm novelty records from the days of wind-up phonographs on display, particularly in the early years. Scrappy Lambert's 1929 vocal ("recording under the name Gordon Wallace), who Hansen tells listeners he found in a thrift store, is the closing theme. "Stay Dement-ed" concludes each show.

For the show's weekly "Demented News," Whimsical Will (real name: William Simpson) published a weekly "Demented News" since the 1980s. He has also performed "break-in" style on television, including "Hey Dickie" (1989), which is also available on iTunes.

Starting in the late 1980s, the show began to lose affiliates, a victim of media consolidation and other developments in the radio industry that had pushed many alternative rock stations and individualistic broadcasters off the air. Westwood One decommissioned the program in 1992, which was immediately picked up by another syndicator, On the Radio Broadcasting. This allowed the syndicated show to air recordings that had been popular on the local Los Angeles show, but Westwood One refused to allow programs such as "It's A Gas" by Alfred E. Neuman and "Moose Turd Pie" by Utah Phillips. Whimsical Will's Demented News, a fixture of the local Los Angeles parade, also appeared on the national television show.

Hansen founded Talonian Productions in 2000 to syndicate the show himself. According to Hansen, the show steadily lost subscribers, and as a result, he had to restructure the delivery of the show from the traditional barter system to a model in which stations paid a fee for the service (though he certainly made exceptions in several major markets, such as WLUP in Chicago). "If the show's financial situation improves quickly, I will be unable to continue the show much longer," Trump said in October 2007. After nearly two and a half years of television news, with no significant improvement in the show's financial situation, the Dr. Demento official website announced on June 6, 2010, that the show that aired that weekend would be the last to be broadcast in the terrestrial radio version; however, new episodes of the popular subscription service will still be available for the foreseeable future, with new episodes released every Saturday. "In addition, and due to contractual concerns, a version of the internet show would be heard on KACV-FM (in Amarillo, Texas), at least through the summer." In January 2011, the show was taken from KACV-FM.

The Dr. Demento Show began offering pay-per-show audio streaming at the show's official website in about 2006. Large archives from 1992 to 1992, as well as a few select archives from the early 1970s, are available, but most of the syndicated programs from 1978 to 1992 are not available because the broadcast rights are now in jeopardy (Dial Global and later Cumulus Media Networks have been sold off; it's unknown if the Dr. Demento syndicated archives are among the programs). They were also added live local shows that aired in Los Angeles from this time. Radio stations were forbidden from streaming the program online as part of Dr. Demento and radio stations' deal. Several radio stations were forced to cancel due to this initiative, thus lowering Dr. Demento's affiliate number (at the time of the show's terrestrial run, only six stations were broadcasting, relative to more than 100 at its peak), exacerbating the show's financial challenges and inability to sell advertisements. Despite the show's terrestrial cancellation, new web episodes are expected to be released in the future. The show came to an end, with the last terrestrial broadcast dedicated to songs involving the word "big" and the first post-terrestrial broadcast dedicated to songs involving the word "little" being on display.

The online display follows a similar style to the terrestrial show; no longer being confined by a radio time slot or commercial breaks, the show usually lasts two hours and may include "bonus tracks" at the end. In order to encourage more detailed special interest segments, the weekly "Funny Five" has been substituted by a monthly Top Ten. Hansen's collection has expanded more deeply into the new model, as well as the ability to play records that had previously been censored on the radio, allowing him to dive deeper into his collection than had been possible on the syndicated radio show.

XM Satellite Radio aired a weekly "Best of Dr. Demento" show (featuring a mix of old and new content) from 2003 to 2005, first on the Special X channel and then on the 6th and the Laugh USA channels.

In the 2005 documentary film about outsider musician Wild Man Fischer, called Derailroaded: Inside The Mind Of A Wild Man Fischer. Dr. Demento played Hippocrates on The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd in September 2007.

In addition to his syndicated appearances on television, he also appears infrequently for other performances. Montel Williams on the now-defunct Air America Media (the day before Halloween), and Jim Svejda on New Year's Eve were two of his guest-hosting stints, as well as older music host Jim Svejda on Sunday.

Meep Morp Studios began to request funds for a documentary called Under the Smogberry Trees: Dr. Demento's True Story on Kickstarter in April 2013. The Dr. Demento Show's video was supposed to be a film about the longevity of funny music in popular culture, as well as current interviews with Dementites linked to and/or inspired by the film. With a total of $118,722 raised by 1,764 backers, the Kickstarter campaign came to a happy conclusion on May 4, 2013. Hansen quit assisting Meep Morp's version of the film on September 27, 2016, and barred Meep Morp from using his name or image for their film. Meep Morp said that after the film had substantially been completed and the studio was set to begin filming Hansen in July 2014, he abruptly refused the interview and released a cease and desist order to the studio instead, stating that he and Talonian will have absolute control of the film and its profits. As of 2022, there has been no version of the film in existence.

Dr. Demento has been inducted into both the Comedy Music Hall of Fame (in June 2005) and the National Radio Hall of Fame (in November 2009). In 2014, Dr. Demento was inducted into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame.

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