He attended Reed College, where he wrote his senior thesis on Wagnerian opera, graduating in 1963, and later studied at UCLA, from which he earned a master's degree in folklore and ethnomusicology. Hansen was born the son of an amateur pianist and claims to have started his vast record collection as early as age 12, when he found "that a local thrift store had thousands of old 78 RPM records for sale at 5 cents each". To some people, he is best known as the man who brought rock parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic to national attention, as well as Elmo and Patsy's 1979 Christmas song "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer". He has also released many compilations of music featured on his show on vinyl records, audio tape cassettes, and compact discs. His weekly show went into syndication in 1974 and is still on the air as of 2006. Legend has it, after Hansen played "Transfusion" by Nervous Norvus on the radio, someone said that he had to be demented to play that. ![]() ![]() He created the persona in 1970 while working at Los Angeles station KPPC-FM. Demento (born Apin Minneapolis, Minnesota) is the stage name of Barret Hansen, who has made a successful career as a radio disc jockey specializing in novelty songs and pop music parodies.
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