It might be a stretch to say that The Producers would never have become a Broadway sensation had it not been for Dr. Demento's radio show - but it certainly didn't hurt.

Dr. Demento - real name Barry Hansen - has spent the last 30 years collecting and playing weird, off-beat songs on his syndicated show, heard Sunday nights coast to coast.

One of those songs was "Springtime for Hitler," from the soundtrack of the 1968 Mel Brooks film The Producers. Brooks wrote it as the musical centerpiece of a show-within-a-show that was intended to be so tasteless that it would have to fail. Hansen's listeners loved the song when he first played it, and it gradually became a staple of Dr. Demento. Hansen now plays the song each April as a kickoff to spring.

Dr. Demento fans don't want to hear the new Broadway cast recording, however (though it's eight minutes long and includes additional lyrics). They want the 3 1/2 -minute original.

"That song runs the risk of being misunderstood," Hansen said, by phone from his home in the Los Angeles area. So each time he plays it, he takes the time to explain its context. He used to get complaints that the song was offensive, but as The Producers has become a huge Broadway smash, those complaints have died.

"Mel Brooks was always somebody who lived on the edge," Hansen says. "Now, at an age when he's about to retire, one of his little-known early works has come back to be the biggest thing he's ever done."

And because Hansen's show kept a small piece of The Producers alive for decades, perhaps he's due some credit.

"Who knows?" he says. "Maybe some people who put up money for the Broadway show heard my show when they were kids."