I heard Casey Kasem on American Top 20 this morning. Yes, it was current. No, I don’t know if he’s really alive or if they just strung together his voice with old clips.
Kasem still hosts 2 spin-offs of his original American Top 40 show, American Top 20 and American Top 10. The original show is now hosted by Ryan Seacrest.
(Because someone decided that shorter is cooler, the shows are now called AT40, AT20 and AT10.)
Casey Kasem co-created the original AT40 in 1970, and hosted from 1970 to 1988. Then he left over a contract dispute and the show was taken over by Shadoe Stevens. Kasem took his show to a competing radio network, and changed the name to Casey’s Top 40. The two shows ran side by side for a few years, but then Kasem returned to the original show in 1998. Ryan Seacrest took over in 2004.
In the early 90′s AT20 and AT10 were created to focus on Adult Contemporary music, whatever the hell that means. Both shows are similar to the original AT40 in format, just shorter, and with different songs on the charts.
Whatever radio station I was listening to was playing the AT20 version, starring Kasem.
As for those of you wondering what happened to Shadoe Stevens, he’s currently the announcer for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and recently co-founded Sammy Hagar’s Cabo Wabo Radio, a rock radio station broadcasting from Mexico. His daughter is on the ABC Family channel’s show Greek.
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