Casey Kasem

Kemal Amin "Casey" Kasem (April 27, 1932 – June 15, 2014) was an American disc jockey, actor and radio presenter, who created and hosted several radio countdown programs, notably American Top 40.

Kemal Amin Kasem (كمال أمين قاسم) was born in Detroit, Michigan on April 27, 1932, to Lebanese Druze immigrants, Helen and Amin Kasem, who were grocers.

He was named after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a man Kasem said his father respected.

Kasem's parents did not allow their children to speak Arabic and insisted they assimilate into American life.

In the 1940s, "Make Believe Ballroom" reportedly inspired Kasem to follow a career in radio.

Kasem received his first experience in radio covering sports at Northwestern High School in Detroit.

He then attended Wayne State University, where he voiced children on radio programs such as The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon. In 1952, Kasem was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Korea.

There, he worked as a DJ/announcer on the Armed Forces Radio affiliate on the peninsula, the American Forces Korea Network (AFKN).

After the war, Kasem began his professional broadcasting career in Flint, Michigan, then worked at Detroit's WJLB and WJBK—and portrayed children's television host "Krogo the Clown" —but left broadcasting to help tend to the family grocery store in Fenton, Michigan.

Kasem unsuccessfully attempted work as a stage actor in New York City for six months, auditioning for a role in the off-Broadway production Ivan Of, but lost out to Ed Asner.

Returning to Detroit, Kasem re-applied at WJBK but was promptly referred to co-owned WJW, which not only had a late-evening slot open but a hosting role for Cleveland Bandstand over WJW-TV as well.

Cleveland's emerging status as a popular music epicenter appealed to Kasem, having been aware of WERE's Bill Randle dating back to when Randle worked in Detroit.

Kasem identified himself as "Casey at the Mike" owing to varied misspellings of his name in both contemporary news accounts and station promos.

Kasem's tenure in Cleveland was a brief but successful one, entering the market "with a vengeance" against Top 40 stations WHK and KYW.

Within three months, Kasem reached second place behind WHK in ratings surveys on weeknights and number one on Saturday nights.

Kasem's predecessor in the time slot, Pete "Mad Daddy" Myers, partially inspired Kasem's presentation on-air, but Kasem felt compelled to develop a unique on-air persona to distinguish himself.

The first three hours of his evening show remained devoted to R&B recordings in a "high-energy rock" style, while the fourth hour was more laidback with his news reader as a co-host.

The R&B selections and "wild-tracking" by Kasem also distinguished himself from WJW's daytime pop-oriented fare, which typically featured Perry Como and The McGuire Sisters as core artists.

Nightly features included Kasem labeling songs as "...of the night", with random phrases or names as a descriptor.

The payola scandal which enveloped Alan Freed's career emerged after Kasem joined WJW; in response, Kasem began a regular comedy bit called the "Payola Tune of the Night" which WJW management encouraged under the assumption it would dissuade listeners from thinking he was under investigation as well.

Ultimately, Kasem's career was not negatively impacted by the payola scandal.

One notable stunt involved Kasem and Diana Trask engaging in an 85-second-long kiss for a "world record" distinction on September 14, 1959, with his news reader describing the kiss on-air.

While hosting Cleveland Bandstand, Kasem started to take pep pills to lose weight; one day he forgot them while en route to the station, with the resulting pang of conscience after retrieving them from his apartment prompting him to give up the habit entirely.

After WJW switched formats to beautiful music, which Kasem attributed directly to the payola scandal, he left WJW for Buffalo's WBNY but remained in contact with friends in the Cleveland area.

At KYA in San Francisco, the general manager suggested he tone down his delivery and talk about the records instead.

At KEWB in Oakland, California, Kasem was both the music director and an on-air personality.

He said he was inspired by a Who's Who in Pop Music, 1962 magazine he found in the trash.

He created a show that mixed biographical tidbits about the artists he played, and attracted the attention of Bill Gavin, who tried to recruit him as a partner.

After Kasem joined KRLA in Los Angeles in 1963, his career began to blossom and he championed the R&B music of East L.A.

Kasem acted in a number of low-budget movies and radio dramas.

While hosting "dance hops" on local television, he attracted the attention of Dick Clark, who hired him as co-host of a daily teenage music show called Shebang, starting in 1964.

Kasem's roles on network TV series included Hawaii Five-O and Ironside.

In 1967, he appeared on The Dating Game, and played the role of "Mouth" in the motorcycle gang film The Glory Stompers.

He was the first actor to voice Shaggy Rogers in the Scooby-Doo franchise (1969 to 1997 and 2002 to 2009) and as Dick Grayson/Robin in Super Friends (1973–1985).

In 1969, he played the role of Knife in the film Wild Wheels, and had a small role in another biker movie, The Cycle Savages, starring Bruce Dern and Melody Patterson, and The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (also with Dern).

Kasem began hosting the original American Top 40 on the weekend of July 4, 1970, and remained there until 1988.

He also founded the American Video Awards in 1983 and continued to co-produce and host it until its final show in 1987.

Kasem also provided many commercial voiceovers, performed many voices for children's television (such as Sesame Street and the Transformers cartoon series), was "the voice of NBC" and helped with the annual Jerry Lewis telethon.

He would then spend nine years hosting another countdown titled Casey's Top 40, beginning in January 1989 and ending in February 1998, before returning to revive American Top 40 in 1998.

Along the way, spin-offs of the original countdown were conceived for country music and adult contemporary audiences, and Kasem hosted two countdowns for the latter format beginning in 1992 and continuing until 2009.