When Barret Hansen, better known as Dr. Demento, recently ended his weekly show, he had spent 55 years spinning weird, silly, or otherwise strange songs on the radio or online. No mere fringe figure, he was an influential figure in American comedy and one of the most important cultural libertarians of his era.<\/span><\/p>\n

That might seem far-fetched to people who grew up in a post-<\/span>SNL<\/span><\/i>, post-<\/span>Seinfeld<\/span><\/i> world. But in the early 1970s, all that lay in the future. Television shows still had to pass strict censorial review to be aired, and the same code policed much of what could be heard on mainstream radio. Hansen’s program pushed against those strictures.<\/span><\/p>\n

Listeners never knew what Hansen might play. One moment might bring a sweet, old novelty song like the Playmates’ “Beep Beep” about a “little Nash Rambler” that turned out to be more powerful than the Cadillac it was racing. The next moment you might hear a risqu\u00e9 song about sex, like Ruth Wallis’ “<\/span>Davy’s Dinghy<\/span><\/a>” (it’s not about his boat) or the Lemon Sisters’ lascivious “<\/span>In My Country<\/span><\/a>” (“The swamp is thick, but don’t be a wussie\/Come steer your canoe right through my pussy…willows”). There was drug humor, from the relatively tame “<\/span>Friendly Neighborhood Narco Agent<\/span><\/a>” to a mid-’90s parody of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” called “<\/span>The Devil Went Down to Jamaica<\/span><\/a>” (“Johnny roll a ball of hash, and make sure it’s the bomb\/’Cause the devil’s got the kind of stuff they smoked in Vietnam”). “<\/span>Cows With Guns<\/span><\/a>,” about bovines revolting against slaughter under the leadership of Cow Tse-tung, would compete with classic comic songs from Spike Jones and Tom Lehrer.<\/span><\/p>\n