Casey Kasem

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Casey Kasem (1989)

Casey Kasem (born Kemal Amin Kasem ; born April 27, 1932 in Detroit , Michigan ; † June 15, 2014 in Gig Harbor , Washington ) was an American radio presenter , cartoonist and actor of Lebanese - Druze descent. Since the early 1960s, Kasem has always ended his radio broadcasts with the sentence: "Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars".

Career

In 1952 Kasem worked as a DJ and broadcaster for the Armed Forces Radio Korea Network during the Korean War . From 1970 to 2004 he moderated the music show " American Top 40 ", which received worldwide attention after being taken over by other radio stations. Casey Kasem thus became a symbol of the possibilities of the radio medium to unite people. This was also expressed in the “Long Distance Dedication” column, which Kasem broadcast weekly within the “American Top 40”, and which enabled lovers living far apart to greet each other by means of a music request (mostly love songs).

The last episode of "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem" was broadcast on January 4, 2004. However, Kasem was still active as a moderator afterwards. His programs "American Top 20" and "American Top 10" continued to be broadcast as syndication productions in the USA. The programs differed in their musical format: "American Top 20" reproduced the radio airplay of the Hot AC radio stations, "American Top 10" that of the AC radio stations.

In the summer of 2007, on the occasion of the 30th year of the "Long Distance Dedication", Kasem sent some specials on the rubric, including a sung greeting from a listener and the repetition of the first Dedication, which was broadcast in 1978. Since November 2007, Kasem has been represented several times on his two radio shows by his son Mike.

The last issues of "American Top 20" and "American Top 10" were on 4th / 5th. Aired July 2009, exactly 39 years after the concept invented by Casey Kasem and Don Bustany began, a fact that Casey Kasem made explicit. At the end of the program, he said “one last time” the closing words with which he had ended each program: “Keep Your Feet On The Ground And Keep Reaching For The Stars”.

On the 40th birthday of the "American Top 40" in July 2010 the presenter of the show, Ryan Seacrest , honored Kasem on the show and gave an insight into the four decades of the successful radio show with numerous reviews. The Berlin-Brandenburg broadcaster Radio Gold has been broadcasting the original shows from the 1970s since January 2013, currently on Sundays from 10:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m.

In addition, Kasem was heard as a spokesman in the English versions of numerous animated series, including Battle of the Planets (first English-dubbed version of Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman ), Transformers , Scooby-Doo and The Super Friends ( The Super Friends ). He also worked as an actor. He played in the 1971 film The Man with Two Heads . His work as a voice actor and acting includes more than 120 productions.

For many years Kasem also campaigned against a one-sided representation of Arabs in the western media. Occasionally this also led to his withdrawal from ongoing productions, for example in 1986 with the Transformers cartoon series.

Kasem died on June 15, 2014 at the age of 82 in Gig Harbor, Washington, from complications from Lewy body dementia .

Awards

Web links

Commons : Casey Kasem  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ New radio station for Berlin-Brandenburg: radio GOLD. In: radio scene. January 2, 2013, accessed on January 28, 2019 (German).
  2. ^ Casey Kasem in Americans for Middle East Understanding. "Arab Defamation in the Media: Its Consequences and Solutions" ( Memento from May 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), December 1990.
  3. ^ Paul Vitello: Casey Kasem, Wholesome Voice of Pop Radio, Dies at 82. Obituary in The New York Times, June 15, 2014 (accessed June 16, 2014).
  4. ^ "Scooby Doo" spokesman: Radio star Casey Kasem dies , Spiegel Online , June 16, 2014
  5. ↑ Radio Hall of Fame ( Memento of November 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) on radiohof.org
personal data
SURNAME Kasem, Casey
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kasem, Kemal Amin (maiden name); Kasem, Kemal Amen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American radio presenter, actor and speaker
DATE OF BIRTH April 27, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Detroit , Michigan
DATE OF DEATH 15th June 2014
Place of death Gig Harbor , Washington