Dr. Demento inducted by Gene Sculatti (notes):

A) Like to start with personal reflection, which may have universal application… As you age, the one dynamic always seems to emerge in your way of looking at the world: Things aren’t as great as they used to be. Reminded of this recently watching some Steve Allen Shows from the early 60s. Struck by how much of the whole sensibility that Allen represented– and also 50s and 60s figures like Louie Nye and even Jazzbo Collins– is gone from popular culture today: that sense of whimsy and liberated silliness, lightness for the sheer

B) [He stands alone]: And, try as I might, I couldn’t think of but one shining example of this sort of light-heartedness who’s working today – except Dr. Demento. He’s the sole remaining beacon for a certain kind of pure, unjustified fun that is what bubblegum music is all about.

Barry (Hansen)/the Doctor has been at this a long time. By the late-60s he’d already been a DJ, a writer and musicologist, a band-booster (worked with Spirit and Canned Heat) and producer of the first serious reissue series on rock & roll, for Specialty Records.

In fact, it was a Specialty compilation he produced in 1968, called Doo-Wop, that gave the first clue as to what Barry Hansen would later become– anyone who’d put together an album comprised of songs like “Moose on the Loose” by Roddy Jackson, “Cherokee Dance” by Bob “Froggie” Landers was well on his way to becoming Dr. Demento. By 1970 he was on the air and doing his thing, which, thankfully, he has yet to stop doing.

C) [the show] Demento’s show is a meeting place, in two ways...

(ONE)
It’s where “our” kind of music gets together– where else will you hear a set that segues from “Yummy Yummy Yummy” by the Ohio Express to the fake doowop of the Mothers of Invention’s “Go Cry on Somebody Else’s Shoulder” to the Ran-Dells’ amazing “Martian Hop”? Or a set that pairs up the themes to George of the Jungle, the Banana Splits and Itchy & Scratchy? Pure genius. Barry, alone among major radio personalities, gave this most disrespected of all music genres the respect it deserved.

(TWO) Recently, I was talking to a younger musician friend, in his 30s, who began listening to Dr. Demento when [musician] was 10 years old, on WMMR in Philadelphia. The doctor’s show is where he first heard Spike Jones and Louie Prima, and “Rubber Biscuit” by the Chips, the Beach Boys’ “I’m Bugged at My Old Man,” etc.

“As long as it was amusing,” my friend said, “it found its way onto Dr. Demento’s playlist.”

D) [Award presentation]: .....That service– of being the channel thru which people continue to discover and rediscover classic, fun music, explains exactly why Dr. Demento deserves to be honored. His vision/mission of what he chooses to put before his listeners is actually subversive. It runs contrary to so many of the themes that have become dominant in entertainment today– “significance” and the sense that every musician is dropping supremely heavy science on us; the foreboding music and frowns of the rapper and indie-rockers, the “no-fun zone” patrolled by so many artists...

Dr. Demento is about smiles & laughter– and that kind of whimsy and silliness I mentioned earlier, which seems in diminishing supply these days. And he continues to keep that tradition alive in the best, most positive way.

In terms of what he’s done for music, he’s really deserving of as many awards as we can bestow on him….. To that I can only add– Smock! Smock! [award] Barry Hansen– Dr. Demento!