In 2018, I was looking for an old tongue twister song that I had memorized while in high school between 1989-1993. (Memorizing wacky songs was the kind of thing I enjoyed doing at the time.) I didn't remember the name of the song or the artist, I just had the lyrics (several tongue twisters) and I knew I heard it from the Dr. Demento Show. If you're not familiar with the show, this was a rare radio show that prided itself on bringing funny and wacky comedy and comedic music to the public. Dr. Demento also helped launch and make Weird Al.
So I decided to reach out to the Dr. Demento show to see if I could find the song, and to my amazement, Dr. Demento himself wrote back. We had a lovely exchange back and forth as he was so kind as to try to help me nail down the song. Well, eventually his archivist found it! (He had multiple people working on it for me!)
The piece is called "Tongue Twister Twist," and it was created by their Demented Newsman, Whimsical Will, back in 1985. It was most recently aired in 1989. Will does all the voices. "He recorded it using two cassette recorders [over 40] years ago, so the sound is not 21st century state of the art, but it's still lots of fun, and quite an accomplishment actually." - Dr. Demento
I'm including the song here for your enjoyment with special thanks to Dr. Demento, a great guy who supplied people with a lot of laughter and happiness. And if you're not familiar with him, here's his Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Demento
It's a shame his show finally ended last year.
"The last traditional new episode of Dr. Demento was released May 31, 2025. The next five months of episodes would be devoted to a retrospective of the program, including one all-request episode. The final show was released on October 11, a countdown of the top 40 most requested songs during the 55-year run of the show.
...
"Dr. Demento was inducted into the Comedy Music Hall of Fame in 2005, the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2009, and the Oregon Music Hall of Fame in 2014. His alma mater Reed College awarded him the Thomas Lamb Eliot Lifetime Achievement Award in 2025."
Thank you for everything, Dr. Demento. We need more Dr. Dementos in this world.
