Bee-otch of the Day honors are awarded
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awarded Friday on Chuck69.com.
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A SPECIAL HERO OF THE
DAY!
Name: Kemal Amin Kasem
Age: 81
Occupation: retired radio personality
Last Seen: Holmby Hills, CA
Awarded For: being one of the greatest voices
in radio history
--
If you were a kid who grew up in the 70's, 80's
and 90's, you owed a lot of your weekends to
Casey Kasem. You woke up Saturday mornings to
watch whatever incarnation of Scooby-Doo that
was running that year and you heard him do the
voice of Scooby's best friend and dispenser of
Scooby Snacks, Shaggy. Then, you woke up a day
later to hear him again do the top 40 countdown,
wondering if Madonna had the #1 record in the
nation this week.
Now, there's a new countdown, and it's not the
one many of his fans - me included - want to do.
It's the one called "Casey's End of Life".
The beloved star of radio and TV is in the
advanced stages of Parkinson's Disease, which
was revealed Tuesday afternoon. The 81-year-old
legend officially retired from his long-time
countdown shows in 2009 and hasn't done much
since. When he retired, he gave no interviews,
although his wife, Jean said that the radio
business is changing, which was a major factor
in Casey's retirement from the medium after a
nearly-six-decade career.
Now, Kasem is residing at his Holmby Hills
estate and his wife is barring anybody -
including his own four children - from seeing
him. Mrs. Kasem claims that part of it is due to
the fact that his three children from his first
marriage to Linda Myers - Mike, Julie and Kerri
- were yanked out of Casey's will. Casey does
have a daughter with Jean, Liberty, who
apparently is in the will.
It was on Tuesday afternoon that Casey's three
elder children protested in front of their dad's
estate, alongside his brother and personal
friends who have known him for more than half a
century, demanding answers. However, Jean called
the cops and the protestors were all thrown off
the property. According to Jean, she does not
want her children to see their father in his
current state.
Kasem's career is one that's lasted nearly six
decades. Starting from humble beginnings near
Flint, MI working at his Lebanese family's
grocery store, little Kemal Amin Kasem dreamed
of being either a baseball player or radio jock.
Of course, he ended up being the latter and
started working at WAMM in his hometown of
Flint. He worked in Detroit, San Francisco,
Buffalo and Cleveland before heading out to Los
Angeles in the early 1960's.
In the late 60's, Kasem began a long career as a
voiceover artist, starting as the voice of Robin
on Filmation's Batman/Superman Hour (ironically,
Filmation founder Lou Scheimer was also the son
of immigrant parents who owned a grocery store
and he is also battling Parkinson's). But it was
crosstown rival Hanna-Barbera where Kasem had
the most success, playing the hipster Norbert
Rogers, aka "Shaggy", who was the best friend to
the ghost-hunting Great Dane known as
Scooby-Doo. Kasem played Shaggy throughout most
of the show's history, save for a few years
after Shaggy appeared in a Burger King
commercial, and the vegan Kasem would not do it.
Kasem rejected many roles, including those on
the Transformers cartoon show because
he felt it was too offensive towards Arabs like
himself. He also turned down the role of the
narrator of the series Soap because he
felt it was too racy (the role went to future The
Price is Right announcer Rod Roddy in his
first major TV role).
But Kasem's crowning achievement came in 1970
when he created American Top 40. Although
it debuted with only a small number of
affiliates, the show quickly gained momentum and
was on several hundred affiliates in just a few
short years. The show was originally three
hours, but grew to four in 1979 due to the
growing amount of longer songs being placed as
singles. He quit the show due to a contract
dispute in 1988 and joined rival Westwood One to
do Casey's Top 40 while AT40 was
placed in the hands of Shadoe Stevens. However,
Shadoe's version was canceled by ABC in 1995 due
to poor ratings and dwindling affiliates. Casey
bought the show back from ABC and moved it to
AMFM (now Clear Channel) in 1998, revitalizing
the brand.
However, Casey retired from AT40 in
2003, giving the show over to Ryan Seacrest. He
continued doing his two other adult-based
countdowns until 2009 when he officially
retired. After retirement, Kasem did work
sporadically, appearing in an ad for Sprint in
2010 and as the uncle of Shaggy on new Scooby-Doo
cartoons.
The fact that Casey Kasem is ill and in
apparently in horrible condition is
heartbreaking. As somebody who grew up listening
to his countdowns and hearing his stories about
the artists he played on his show made him a
great listen on Sunday mornings. True, I outgrew
the Top 40 format in my teens, but I found
myself listening to his 70's countdowns on
Sirius on Sunday mornings up until I dumped the
satcaster a few weeks ago (ironically, we all
learned about Robin's cancer not long after I
dropped it, making for a double whammy). I know
that he won't get better, but all I can say is
that before he dies, I hope he knows that all of
us who are in or flat-out love radio owe him a
deep, great debt and it will be an extremely sad
day when he passes on. I hope that he's
comfortable, and I pray also that his family can
see some closure from their feud.
For years, Casey has told us, "keep your feet on
the ground and keep reaching for the stars".
Now, it's time for him to go beyond the stars.
---
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