Around this time, a British musician going by the name Ivor Bigguns (specializing in a lot of innuendo-laden songs) made a tribute video to Dr. Demento, walking all over England while singing a song that name checks some of Dr. D’s greatest hits. The video is chock-full of references, many of which are explained on this Ivor Bigguns fan website.
Needless to say, the good doctor was delighted to receive this video tribute, which was made without his knowledge and sent to him.
When asked if he ever gets tired of playing these funny songs, Dr. Demento said that the best part is that he can draw from such a wide variety of genres. He can play rock, country, classical (think PDQ Bach), blues, jazz, and even punk rock. One of his favorites was “Teenage Lobotomy” by the Ramones. He points out that in their recorded version, at least, you can actually understand all the lyrics. With some punk bands, he just can’t tell what they’re saying without looking up the lyrics, but he often found their message interesting, if a bit unintelligible.
We then watched Weird Al’s video for “Amish Paradise,” from his biggest seller, Bad Hair Day. Dr. D introduced the video by saying that Al likes to ask permission from artists before doing parodies — he doesn’t technically have to, but Al’s a nice guy and prefers to do that. Plus, since he’s successful, he could be a bigger target for lawsuits. I’m pretty sure he meant to talk about the miscommunication around “Amish Paradise,” when he thought he had permission to make a parody of “Gangster’s Paradise” but then Coolio later claimed he didn’t give permission. But then we were all too busy laughing at the video and I think he forgot to finish his story.
Of course, after Weird Al’s success, Dr. Demento received even more cassettes from hopeful musicians. Later it was CDs, and now it’s mostly MP3s or links to websites and YouTube videos. He spends a good deal of time sifting through these, and although he does find some great songs he also has to listen to a lot of things that just don’t quite do it. One band that did well in the peak of the CDs era was They Might Be Giants. We watched the Tiny Toon Adventures music video for “Particle Man”:
Now, Dr. Demento’s show is online. He still does a show once a week, posting a new show on Saturdays, but you can now go back and listen to old shows as well, going all the way back to the beginning. There are something like over 600 shows available in the archive. Unfortunately, they’re not free — each episode runs $2, to pay the costs of running the site (especially the licensing fees), but you can also buy packages.
