Since 1971 Dr. Demento has been the host of a weekly program of novelty songs and comedy skits, syndicated to more than 100 stations across the United States. Mixing the works of such legends as Spike Jones, Tom Lehrer, Monty Python, Stan Freberg, and Frank Zappa with contemporary comedians, comedy troupes, and musicians, the show has filled a unique niche in contemporary radio programming.

     Barret Hansen, the future Dr. Demento, was born in Minneapolis in 1941. From his early years, it was clear that music would be a focus in his life. Prompted by his father, an amateur pianist, Hansen began taking piano lessons at the age of six. He also started a record collection, purchased mostly from a local thrift shop offering thousands of old 78-rpm disks.

     The spread of rock and roll in the 1950s captivated Hansen, and he was particularly interested in rock's roots in rhythm and blues and country. After dabbling in disc jockey work in high school, Hansen attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where he worked as student manager of the campus FM station and graduated in 1963 with a degree in classical music. He then moved on to UCLA, where he wrote a master's thesis in 1967 on the evolution of rhythm and blues in the 1940s and early 1950s.

     After graduate school in 1968, Hansen worked in Los Angeles for Specialty Records, a rhythm and blues label, and helped release a series of classic reissues. He also began hosting radio programs. This was during the famed era (late 1960s and early 1970s) of free-form FM radio, also frequently referred to as "progressive" or "underground" FM radio. Emerging from both coasts and a number of college radio stations, the relatively short-lived free-form era was a period of personal rather than corporate radio. Stations professed a concern with playing good music rather than salable product, and they allowed disc jockeys the freedom to construct their own playlists rather than follow a preconceived format. In 1970 Hansen made a series of guest appearances on KPPC, the legendary free-form radio station, joining a show hosted by Steven Siegal, who was later known as "The Obscene Steven Clean." Siegel coined the name "Dr. Demento" for Hansen, and the guest spots were such a success that in 1971 Los Angeles station KPPC gave Hansen his own weekly program of rock rarities. Dr. Demento expanded the playlist to include such classics as "The Purple People Eater," "Transfusion," and "The Monster Mash," and listeners quickly demanded more of such fare.

     In 1972 KMET-FM in Los Angeles became the new home of The Dr. Demento Show. The show first captivated the local arena, becoming the most listened-to Sunday evening radio program in Los Angeles, then the nation, when it went into syndication in 1974. At this point, Dr. Demento became a well-known figure with his own unique look, including a top hat he first wore on an album cover in 1975, and a "Rare Records" t-shirt from a local collectors record store.

     The Dr. Demento Show's success has been built on a foundation of both classic novelty hits and submissions from amateur artists. Of the former, Demento's resurrection of Spike Jones is a good example. Jones and his band, The City Slickers, specialized in zany melodies and lyrics, with a wide variety of unusual noises and sound effects thrown in to produce a uniquely whimsical sound. Jones met with great success on radio and in records beginning in the World War II era, producing such hits as "Der Fuehrer's Face" and "You Always Hurt the One You Love." However, his popularity faded by the mid-1950s, and he died in 1965. His recorded works became a cornerstone of The Dr. Demento  Show's playlist, and Dr. Demento referred to Jones as "the King of Dementia." This exposure, plus the addition of a number of Jones' classics to Dr. Demento's various novelty collection vinyl (now CD) releases, introduced a new generation to the mad music of Spike Jones.

     Although such classic recordings have continued to be a key part of the show, Dr. Demento has also received submissions of amateur works. Perhaps his most significant find through this process was famed parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic. When only in his teens and a fan of The Dr. Demento Show, Yankovic mailed in a home-recorded parody. After a number of years of such submissions, Yankovic finally reached a more mainstream audience with the single "Another One Rides the Bus," which he performed live on The Dr. Demento Show in 1980. Thus, The Dr. Demento Show helped spawn Yankovic's enormous popularity as rock music's best-known parodist.

     Such songs as Yankovic's parodies are the backbone of Demento's weekly show. A typical broadcast opens with an hour of a general playlist: skits and songs from the Kids in the Hall, Tom Lehrer, Monty Python, Allan Sherma , Julie Brown, and Cheech and Chong; songs such as "They're Coming to Take Me Away," ''Fish Heads," and "Dead Puppies"; novelty cuts from otherwise straight rock acts such as The Police and AC/DC; and outright strange experiments, such as songs sung by Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner. The subsequent half hour is oriented around a single theme, such as songs about streaking, baseball, the internet, and so on. The remaining airtime consists of the "Funny Five," the top five most requested songs of the week. Notably, virtually all of the two-hour playlist comes from Dr. Demento's own record collection, built up since his days of buying records at the thrift shop. Outside of his radio work, Dr. Demento also works on research projects, helps to compile various comedy collections, and continues to build his archival collection. He also writes on music history, penning numerous magazine articles, liner notes, and encyclopedia entries.

     Dr. Demento emerged during a unique period in FM radio history, and his subsequent success owes a great deal to his love for and knowledge of all kinds of music and his ability to convey his enthusiasm to listeners. When asked what he saw as his place in radio history, Dr. Demento replied: "I try to open people's ears to lots of different kinds of music, old and new, that they might not otherwise be exposed to. I've entertained some people and opened their ears to musical discoveries, and helped the careers of some great artists."