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As host of American Top 40, Kasem was the nation’s tastemaker, doling out hit singles and music factoids as he counted down each week’s most popular songs for nearly 35 years. A talent that transcended his medium, Kasem became a household name thanks to his distinctly trademark voice, his aspiring catchphrases and his love and genuine enthusiasm of the music he was broadcasting nationwide every week.
After bouncing around the nation as a disc jockey from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, Kasem finally landed in Los Angeles in the late Sixties. He first enjoyed showbiz success as a voice actor, lending his versatile pipes to cartoon characters like Robin and, most famously, Shaggy in Scooby-Doo, a role Kasem would fill from 1969 to 2010. From there, Kasem used his disc jockey skills – which he honed as an announcer for Armed Forces Radio Korea when he was in the Army – to co-create and host American Top 40, a syndicated weekly music countdown show that would become pop radio’s equivalent of Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.For his vast work in the entertainment industry, Kasem was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1981. Four years later, he was inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters’ Hall of Fame for his radio career. Kasem is also a member of the National Radio Hall of Fame.
Kasem’s run as host of American Top 40 began in 1970, giving him a national platform to showcase his unique personality and epic catchphrases like “The hits don’t stop ’til we reach the top” and “Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.” Kasem remained with the program until 1988, when a contract dispute led him to start his own syndicated countdown show called Casey’s Top 40.
With Kasem no longer the voice of American Top 40 — radio host Shadoe Stevens took over the role — ratings for AT40 plummeted as stations instead picked up Casey’s Top 40. American Top 40 was ultimately canceled in 1995; three years later, Kasem himself acquired the rights to the show and reinstated himself as host. Kasem was a mainstay on radios until January 4th, 2004.
