Legendary Broadcaster Casey Kasem's outtake and telescoped 1989 show

Kasem's Radio bio

1950s-1960s

Kasem, whose radio career started in the mid-1950s in Detroit at WJBK, developed his rock-trivia persona from his work as a disc jockey in the early 1960s at KYA in San Francisco and KEWB in Oakland, California. He also worked for several other stations across the country, including WJW (now WKNR) in Cleveland, Ohio, WBNY (now WWWS) in Buffalo, New York, and KRLA 1110 in Los Angeles (1963–69), before launching the national show American Top 40 on July 4, 1970.


1970s-1980s

Kasem is best known as a music historian and disc jockey, most notably as host of the weekly American Top 40 radio program from July 4, 1970 to 1988, and again from March 1998 until January 10, 2004, when Ryan Seacrest succeeded him. He hosted a spin-off television show called America's Top 10 for most of the 1980s. For a period in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Kasem was the staff announcer for the NBC television network. More recently, he has appeared in infomercials, marketing CD music compilations. Kasem received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on April 27, 1981, his 49th birthday, and was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1992. When he was hosting American Top 40, Mr. Kasem would often include trivia facts about songs and artists. Frequently he mentioned a trivia fact about an unnamed singer before a commercial break, and then provide the name of the singer after returning from the break.

In 1984, Kasem made a cameo in Ghostbusters, reprising his role as the host of American Top 40.

Kasem was sometimes thought of as a perfectionist in the studio, and there are at least two known instances where he lost his temper while recording the show. The most infamous incident occurred while recording a listener dedication of a song ("Shannon" by Henry Gross) to his deceased dog (1st video above). Kasem felt that the song that preceded it, the Pointer Sisters' "Dare Me", was too up-tempo for him to transition to a more somber moment, and he launched into a profanity-laced tirade. The other incident occurred while Kasem was introducing a U2 song, and he felt that the copy he was given was too verbose. Both of these moments have been displayed and satirized on websites such as YouTube, and both incidents were sampled in a song by the experimental music group Negativland in 1991 called "U2".

1990s

From January 1989 to March 1998, when Kasem was not at the helm of AT40, he was host of Casey's Top 40, Casey's Hot 20, and Casey's Countdown, syndicated by the Westwood One Radio Networks. He was also the host of the short-lived American version of 100% during the 1998-99 season, and would close each episode by inviting viewers to join him that weekend on AT40, which Kasem had just returned to.

2000s

In August 2006, XM Satellite Radio, now merged with Sirius Satellite Radio, began airing newly restored versions of the original American Top 40 radio show from the 1970s and 1980s. Premiere Radio Networks also started airing reruns of AT40 (dating from 1970 to 1978 & 1980-1988) in January 2007.

On the week of July 4, 2009, after 39 years on air, Casey Kasem ended his run on the radio. American Top 20 and American Top 10 aired their final shows, with Casey giving a brief retrospective of his 39 years of counting down the hits. Casey also read one final Long Distance Dedication, from a listener thanking Casey for 39 years of music. Replays of Casey's shows from the 1970s and 1980s continue to air on 200+ stations around the country, but Casey is no longer producing any new material in the studio.

Since ending his run on radio, Casey has given no interviews. He briefly appeared on his daughter's podcast in late 2009.