I must have hit the Demento gold mine on the first tape I transferred to the computer -- you saw the list. The second tape showed just how silly/really stupid most of the material he plays is. From the second tape I got "I'm A Christmas Tree", "Christmas Tree Song", "Cow Cow Boogie", "She Taught Me How To Yodel", "My Voice Is Changing", "Bury Me In My Shades", "Test Tube Baby", "Dead Puppies " and "Punk Polka". The gem -- real music -- is "Boogie". The rest are interesting for various reasons. "Puppies" for its churchy, funereal sound; "Yodel" for, well, yodelling; "Shades" just because it's by Shel Silverstein; and "Tree" by the truly sick Larry "Wild Man" Fischer.
On the third tape I found a better known Wild Man Fischer song, "My Name Is Larry". A couple years back I saw a movie titled "Larry 'Wild Man' Fischer". It was produced by Billy Mumy, the "Lost In Space" kid, who is also a Dr. D musical star. He is also one Barnes of "Barnes and Barnes" the creators of the incredibly popular song "Fish Heads", the #5 most requested song on the Dr. D show. The movie told of how Frank Zappa found and befriended Fischer, a schizophrenic living on the streets, singing songs for ten cents. He recorded Fischer's mindless songs, usually made up on the spot and played them for Dr. D, who put a couple on his show, the most popular one being "My Name Is Larry". Mumy encouraged Fischer's impromptu singing, and encouraged him to perform in a concert setting. Fischer tried and the audiences were always welcoming and enthusiastic, but he was extremely uncomfortable on stage, ultimately refusing any further live performances. Over time Fischer became paranoid and ended up rejecting contact with Mumy and others. Fischer's still out there doing his thing having been on "Jimmy Kimmell, Live" in 2006. There is much more on him in Wikipedia.
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