The Sound Waves

Things Boomers Loved
DOCTOR DEMENTO

Once upon a time, long long ago, we listened to AM radio.

No, really, I'm serious. The FM band was just coming into its own, back then in the 60's. Most of the boomers grew up listening to the pop sounds over their AM dials. Here in the Delaware Valley, we tuned in to the latest and the greatest coming from the boss jocks at WFIL (560 on the AM dial) or to Hy Lit and Joe Niagra over at WIBBAGE (that's WIBG, 99). That was the way it was, at least until WMMR opened its FM doors and opened our teenybooper minds to progressive rock.

But whatever your musical preference, in 1974 you were introduced to something completely different. That was the year Barrett Eugene Hansen - better known as "Dr. Demento" - started syndicating his four year old all-novelty radio program. For two hours every Sunday night (later it went to four), my friends and I would tune in to to hear such classics as the Monty Python crew's "Spam," "The Time Warp" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, silly favorites like "The Monster Mash," and the latest efforts by an unknown (but crazy funny) songwriter/mimic who called himself Weird Al Yankovich.

I remember listening to the Dr. Demento show on Sunday nights, waiting for the Funny Five (the final countdown) and hoping for an Allan Sherman or Kip Addotta song to close out the weekend and put me in the proper frame of mind for the next day's Bio test. The old Doc was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2009, and his show can still be heard...though now, he's streaming over the internet.

Where can I put in a request for "The Lumberjack Song"?