It's hard to believe, but in July 2020, American Top 40 will turn 50.
Starting with a network of seven stations in 1970, American Top 40 has become as much a fabric of pop culture as the music heard on the show. Co-created and hosted by Casey Kasem, AT40 used Billboard's Hot 100 chart to count down the 40 biggest hits in the country. Kasem, at the time better known for his cartoon work (i.e. Scooby-Doo), had worked in different parts of the country, including Buffalo and Detroit, before venturing to Los Angeles in the late 60's, where he hosted a regional dance show, Shebang. You might say that Scooby-Doo, among others, helped Kasem get AT40 on the air.
However, a salary dispute led to Kasem's departure in the summer of 1988. Shadoe Stevens (Hollywood Squares) took over as host, but a steady decline in ratings led to---Zoinks!---cancellation in 1995. At that point, the series had been discontinued in most of the country, and played mostly in foreign markets until January 1995. Three years later, AT40 returned, with Kasem back at the helm after a rival syndicator had dropped his program.
One of the most popular features was the Long Distance Dedication segment, which launched in 1978, usually twice per episode. This was inspired by spoken word single Kasem recorded in 1964, "Letter From Elena" (Like, did you really think he'd try to sing?), but it took 8 years into the run before the dedications became a part of the show.
Today, one of the busiest men in show business, Ryan Seacrest (American Idol, Live! With Kelly & Ryan, etc.), serves as host, and has incorporated features from his daily show into AT40, and vice versa. Seacrest is in his 14th year as MC, and the show has been on more FM stations since the 80's, and can also be heard online on Iheartradio.com.
Edit, 3/28/22: Once again, we're changing the video. This time, we're going back to 1975, as Casey revisits the series premiere, marking the 5th anniversary. This excerpt is as heard on WPIX-FM in New York:
Kasem even poked fun at himself. There was a scene in a Scooby-Doo DTV, I think, where Shaggy (Kasem) decides to mimic the radio legend. Way too easy to do, of course. We lost Casey in 2014, five years after he'd ended his radio career.
Rating: A.
2 comments:
That would be the DTV, "Chill Out Scooby Doo!" (2007).
I'm surprised they didn't take advantage of that joke sooner!
I'm with you there. AT40 launched in between seasons 1 & 2 of Scooby-Doo, but I don't think there was much cross-promotion in the early days, although I remember one episode a few years later, where Casey referenced one of his films, "The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant".
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