Dr. Demento shared a story and a video clip of Tom Lehrer, who many know for his bizarre songs. But, according to Dr. Demento, Lehrer always considered himself above all a math professor. He took his music seriously, but that was something that was only for a period of his life, and he didn’t really like performing in public as much. In 1998, there was a benefit concert for Cameron Mackintosh, a producer who, among other things, did the show “Tom Foolery” based on Lehrer’s music — it made Lehrer a good deal of money, so he couldn’t say no to this performance. Plus, the Queen of England was in the audience.
Lehrer performed one of his most well-known (and most-twisted) songs, “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.” Despite not performing for over two decades, he still does a tremendous job:
In the 1970s, as it became easier to make cassette tapes, Dr. Demento started playing homemade tapes sent in by fans. The radio station was worried about playing things that weren’t properly licensed, but he won the argument. In 1976, a 16-year-old kid named Alfred Yankovic game him a cassette with his song “Belvedere Cruisin’,” a song about cruising around in his family’s Plymouth Belvedere. Dr. D was impressed with Alfred’s lyric-writing skills, particularly the line: “There’s something ’bout a Comet that makes me wanna vomit.” It was a treat to hear a young Alfred (before he became “Weird” Al) singing along with his accordion — unfortunately, I can’t find that particular recording easily, but maybe a search through Dr. Demento’s archives would turn it up. It was the first of many of Weird Al’s songs to be played on the Dr. Demento Show.
Dr. Demento said he’d gotten to interview Frank Zappa several times on the show. He said that Zappa was sometimes difficult to interview, but always had interesting things to say. We watched a clip of Zappa performing “I’m the Slime” on Saturday Night Live in 1976. Dr. Demento commented that while Zappa did some weird things with his music, he was also very serious about making the music right. He was notoriously difficult to work for, because he demanded a lot from his musicians and pushed them to their limits. Like Spike Jones, he wanted to do new things, and produced a lot of music that was very challenging and avant-garde.
The late ’70s and early ’80s were the heyday of the Dr. Demento Show and a lot of great songs came across during this time. One such song was “Fish Heads” by Barnes & Barnes, which has some pretty fascinating trivia attached to it. Barnes & Barnes was Robert Haimer and Bill Mumy, and they made some effort in keeping their real identities a secret at first. Bill Mumy actually played the young Will Robinson in Lost in Space, and later appeared on Babylon 5 and The Twilight Zone as well. Their video for the song (which you can see below) aired on Saturday Night Live and featured a young actor named Bill Paxton (who also directed the video), in his second appearance on screen. Dr. Demento makes a cameo as well, as the drunk homeless man in the prologue. “Fish Heads” is one of Dr. Demento’s two most-requested songs of all time.
The other most requested song, Dr. Demento explained, did not have an official music video — for good reason, although that hasn’t kept many people from making their own versions. “Dead Puppies” by Ogden Edsl is exactly what it sounds like. Dr. D said it’s probably the closest thing to a power ballad in the novelty-song world.
