From Just a Little Loopy to Certifiably Insane

Several years ago, a friend of my brother’s brought over this Dr. Demento compilation and left it with us for quite a while. During that time, many of the songs became ingrained in our psyche, and we would occasionally burst into one of the songs for no particular reason. Many times my brother and I said that we ought to buy the collection one of these days. This year, my parents put an end to the “someday we should”s by presenting me with the Dr. Demento 20th Anniversary Collection on my birthday. And I’m awfully glad they did.

This 36-song set covers decades of the goofiest music ever recorded. Ranging from the silly to the just plain sick, these songs are always good for a laugh (or maybe a groan). The two CDs come with a nice booklet containing information on each of the artists whose work appears in the collection. The booklet explains that this funnybone-tickling music is known as novelty music and used to be enormously popular up until the late 㣠s. Dr. Demento’s show began in the early 㣪s and allowed people to enjoy a genre that had fallen out of favor with the music industry. Introducing audiences to classic and up-and-coming novelty musicians, it became a haven for all those who revel in the slightly deranged or off-kilter. This collection includes a sampling of some of the greatest records played on Dr. Demento’s show, from the early novelty record king Spike Jones to today’s parody royalty, Weird Al Yankovic, who was himself inspired by Dr. Demento’s show.

Now for the track listing. There are so many great tracks here, I’ll probably be compelled to comment on most of them. They really are a treat.

Disc One

1. Delicious! - Okay, this one doesn’t do it for me. I’m a fan of Jim Backus, but this I don’t get. Just him and a woman gushing obnoxiously over the meal they are eating. Couldn’t they have come up with a better start to the collection?

2. The Scotsman - Quite possibly my favorite song in the collection. I guess this makes up for not liking the first song. I’m such a fan of this song, in fact, that I sang it at my college’s Evening of Dubious Taste. It was a hit, and I’m sure my singing voice was not the reason. This folkie a cappella number involves a pair of young ladies who come upon a sleeping Scotsman and determine to answer the age-old question, “I wonder if it’s true what they don’t wear beneath the kilt?”

3. Junk Food Junkie - A really fun song with sort of a country/folk feel. The narrator croons about his dedication to health food, calling himself “Mr. Natural.” But at night, he is overtaken by a desperate need for junk food: “At night I’m a junk food junkie, oh, Lord, have pity on me.”

4. Eat It - Weird Al’s first big hit. This parody of Michael Jackson’s Beat It assumes the voice of a nagging mother insisting that her children eat the food that is put before them. “Why are you always such a fussy young man? Don’t want no Captain Crunch, don’t want to Raisin Bran. Well, don’t you know that other kids are starving in Japan?”

5. Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (On the Bedpost Overnight) – A very fun and pointless song. This is the narrator’s most pressing question, one which plagues him and apparently everyone else, as well. “Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight? If your mother says ‘don’t chew it’ will you swallow it in spite? Can you catch it on your tonsils? Can you heave it left and right?”

6. Wet Dream - Like Delicious!, not a favorite. It’s not a song, but a campy detective story (for Garrison Keillor fans, think Guy Noir) filled with bad fish puns.

7. Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh! Another favorite song. This one is a hoot. It uses that whimsical and familiar tune which, among other things, was the melody borrowed by Velveeta for a series of jingles ("It's Velveeta versus cheddar. Our Velveeta melts much better. Cheddar's runny, cheddar's oily, cheddar drips right off the plate onto your doily.") The narrator is a young boy (voiced by a bored-sounding man, Allan Sherman) writing a letter home to tell his parents about all the horrible things happening at camp and begging to go home. His desperation builds throughout the song – “Take me home, oh Muddah, Faddah, take me home, I hate Granada. Don’t leave me out in the forest where I might get eaten by a bear.” – until a change in circumstances alters his outlook.

8. Wappin’ - A wacky Looney Tunes rap featuring the vocal talents of Darrell Hammond Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny, and Daffy Duck.

9. The Purple People Eater - This one’s a classic. Always played around Halloween, it details a man’s encounter with an alien who sounds like Alvin, Simon, and Theodore’s long-lost brother. As threatening as his description sounds, however, he’s just a fun-loving guy who “want[s] to get a job in a rock and roll band.”

10. Monster Mash - Also a Halloween classic, and pretty spooky sounding too. All your favorite ghouls and fiends gather for a party that’s “a graveyard smash.”

11. Cocktails for Two - Not a fan of this one, but I love Spike Jones’ other number.

12. Transfusion - Definitely not a fan of this one either. Gives me the willies…

13. Beep Beep - A fun little song poking fun at the Cadillac. A man riding in his Cadillac engages in a race with a man in a little Nash Rambler – “I’ll show him that a Cadillac is not a car to scorn.” The tempo of the song is very slow at first and gradually increases as the speed of the car increases, finishing at a very fast clip.

14. St. George and the Dragonet - Kinda like Wet Dreams. Spoken, and a parody of both Dragnet and the legend of St. George and the Dragon.

15. Witch Doctor - I’m a huge Chipmunks fan, so of course I love their signature song. This was the one that started it all. In fact, at this point it isn’t even listed as the Chipmunks yet; it’s just The Music of David Seville. Off-the-wall and tons of fun to sing on car trips. “I know that you’ll be mine when I say this to you: Oh baby, ooh ee ooh ah ah, ting tang walla walla bing bang.”

16. Gitarzan - You can guess the general direction of this song. It doesn’t do anything for me.

17. Earache My Eye - This one doesn’t do much for me either.

18. Dead Puppies - This morbid song brings the first disc to a close. The morose narrator, again a man in the role of a child, laments the fact the “dead puppies aren’t much fun.” It’s amusing in a disturbing way. “My puppy died late last fall. He’s still rotting in the hall.” Yech.

Disc Two

1. Dancin’ Fool - Again, I don’t like the first song on the disc. A little too manic for me.

2. Star Trekkin’ - The most popular of many Star Trek parodies that appeared on Dr. Demento’s show, this one features five of the main characters from the original series. Each verse builds on the next (think The Twelve Days of Christmas), and the soundbytes from Uhura, Spock, McCoy, Kirk, and Scotty erupt into chaos by the end. “Star Trekkin’ across the universe. Only goin’ forward, ‘cause we can’t find reverse.”

3. The Time Warp - I don’t like this one either. A lot of my friends are Rocky Horror junkies, but this song gives me a headache.

4. Masochism Tango - One of two Tom Lehrer songs on this collection. Both are gruesome, over-dramatic, and hilarious. In this song, he tells his ladylove how much enjoys dancing the masochism tango with her, sustaining injuries all the way. “Let our love be a flame, not an ember. Say it’s me that you want to dismember.” Erm… I think I’ll stick with Al Pacino!

5. The Homecoming Queen’s Got a Gun - The only song on the collection performed by a woman. There are female contributions to other songs, but this is the only one with a female headliner, Julie Brown. A stereotypical val gal is celebrating the coronation of her best friend Debbie as Homecoming Queen when something goes horribly wrong. The dance turns into a blood bath, punctuated by the narrator’s observations. “Boom! Now the math teacher’s dead! Oh, it’s really sad, but kind of a relief; we had a big test coming up next week!”

6. The Ballad of Irving - This one’s a parody of The Ballad of Big John, featuring a noodle-noggined, butterfingered Jewish cowboy named Irving, “the 142nd-fastest gun in the West.” It is a song, but it is spoken rather than sung by the deep-voiced narrator, who does have backup singers crooning on the chorus. Filled with little jokes at the unfortunate Irving’s expense, many of them focus on his Jewish heritage. “He always honored his mother’s wishes. Even on the range he used two sets of dishes.”

7. The Battle of Kookamonga - Probably my dad’s favorite song on the collection, this is also a parody, of the war song The Battle of New Orleans. Like Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah, it takes place at a summer camp, and the boys, aided by their scoutmasters, plan an ambush on some skinny-dipping girl scouts. “We’re the boys from Camp Kookamonga. Our mothers sent us here for to study nature’s ways. We learned to make sparks by rubbin’ sticks together, but if we catch the girls then we’ll set the woods ablaze.” Their mission is thwarted by the speed of the girls and another ambusher they had not counted on…

8. King Tut - Kind of a fun song, mainly because it’s Steve Martin. He’s not really singing here, just sort of droning, but his ruminations on the Egyptian boy king who was “born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia” are amusing.

9. Der Fuehrer’s Face - This is the Spike Jones song I do like. It was the soundtrack of an early 㣌s Donald Duck anti-Hitler propaganda cartoon. It also showed up once on my favorite sit-com, M*A*S*H, resulting in Radar getting a faceful of Hawkeye’s saliva. How often do you get a chance to blow raspberries at Hitler? “When Der Fuehrer says he is the master race, then we Heil ppphhhhttttt! Heil ppppphhhhtttt! right in Der Fuehrer’s Face.”

10. Fish Heads - This innocuous little tune is probably my brother’s favorite track. “In the morning, laughing, happy fish heads. In the evening, floating in my soup.” Accompanied by what sounds like a triangle, the oddball narrators detail all of the things that fish heads cannot do, and some things they can. “I took a fish head out to see a movie. Didn’t have to pay to get it in.”

11. Poisoning Pigeons in the Park - Tom Lehrer’s other song. Sick, sick, sick, but boy is it fun. “Oh, the world seems in tune on a spring afternoon when I’m poisoning pigeons in the park.” The overzealous narrator details his various ingenious methods for poisoning pigeons. It’s obvious he enjoys his hobby immensely and thinks little of those who cry fowl play. “It’s not against any religion to want to dispose of a pigeon.”

12. Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out - I adore Shel Silverstein. I think he was a genius. Definitely one of the kings of light verse. This classic Silverstein poem is read by the author, who sounds very deranged indeed as he rattles off the list of disgusting food piling up due to Sarah’s negligence.

13. The Cockroach That Are Cincinnati - This campy-sounding song is narrated by a horror-loving guy (“if there’s blood and there’s gore then I want to see more of it”) who admits the film that scared him the most was The Cockroach That Are Cincinnati. A fun song.

14. Surfin’ Bird - Very bouncy but gets kinda old pretty darn fast. Basically just gibberish.

15. Pencil Neck Geek - In this song, the narrator slams all the poor pencil-neck geeks in the world, identifying them as the worst group of people alive. These poor nerds come across as some sort of parasite whose only purpose is to be abused by the cool folks. “Can’t find a toothpick? Use a geek. He’ll do.”

16. Ti Kwan Leep / Boot to the Head - Most of this is taken up by a skit involving an unruly martial arts student being taught a lesson by his patient but willing-to-inflict-pain instructor. His disciplinary secret leads to a catastrophic revolt among his students. The song then begins, listing all the situations in which it is appropriate to use this disciplinary measure, the “boot to the head.” “People talking in movie shows, people smoking in bed, people voting Republican, give them a boot to the head.”

17. Existential Blues - Whoa. This one’s way out there. A rambling epic of a song, it makes very little sense at all. Stream of consciousness I guess, and eventually having a lot to do with The Wizard of Oz. A little too bizarre for my tastes.

18. They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa! - An appropriate ending to the collection. This condition could very well apply to most of the authors of these songs, and perhaps to those who have listened to too many of them! This song, yet another which is not sung but spoken (in crisp, march-like tones), is accompanied only by a tambourine. In it, a perfectly sane and rational-sounding man begins by telling his wife/girlfriend how he is going insane because she left. As the verse and chorus progress, special effects cause him to actually sound as though he has gone completely loopy. He then begins the next verse sane again, progressing once more to madness. “They’re coming to take me away, ha-haa! To the happy home, where life is wonderful all the time and I’ll be glad to see those nice young men in their clean white coats.” (One song that is not intended to be a novelty record but reminds me very much of this song is Lou Christie’s Lightning Strikes, in which he follows the same format of sounding completely normal and rational at the beginning of each verse but spiraling into high-pitched screeching by the end of each chorus.)

Well, that concludes the collection, and what a collection it is. Check it out when you need a bit of levity. Dr. Demento is guaranteed to deliver!