Barret Eugene Hansen better known as Dr. Demento, is a radio broadcaster and record collector specializing in novelty song

Novelty song

A novelty song is a comical or nonsensical song, performed principally for its comical effect. Humorous songs, or those containing humorous elements, are not necessarily novelty songs. The term arose in Tin Pan Alley to describe one of the major divisions of popular music. The other two divisions...

s, comedy

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

, and strange or unusual recordings dating from the early days of phonograph records to the present.

He created the persona in 1970 while working at Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 station KPPC-FM. After Hansen played "Transfusion" by Nervous Norvus

Nervous Norvus

Nervous Norvus was the performing name of Jimmy Drake . His novelty song "Transfusion" was a major hit in 1956, as was a second song, "Ape Call," released later that year....

 on the radio, DJ Steven Clean said that Hansen had to be "demented" to play that.