[78-L] End of an Era: Dr. Demento ends radio run

[Michael Biel]

I had done a program very similar to his about 6 months before his first
program.  Mine was The Junkyard, on WNUR Evanston Illinois.  I ended up
doing a segment each week playing a weird record on a talk show by Al
Lerner for the next couple of years till 1972.  Al later was on WGN,
Chicago, and I would have picked up doing that except by then Demento
was going strong and anybody doing novelty records would seem like a
copy of Demento even if we had done it before him.  But you are so
right, radio ain't fun no more.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  


-------- Original Message --------

From: David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
> Dr. Demento is a member of Toast of New York and is heard from frequently. A couple of months ago he gave me a plug when he aired (online only, not on the broadcast version) my near first-generation copy of The Crepitation Contest.

> I'll admit to having drawn some inspiration from Dr. D over the years, although I'd never heard his program when a listener to my local show called me a Canadian Doctor Demento. Some years later, I presented nightly insanity on the CBC Network on "Summer Camp" and then "Night Camp". While on a visit to Los Angeles, I dropped into the offices of Westwood One with a few samples..they said they loved the program but couldn't do anything with it, since they already had Dr. D and HE was a hard sell. Radio ain't fun no more.

dl