Actors - Casey Kasem

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	Actors - Casey Kasem

Casey Kasem (born Kemal Amin Kasem on April 27 1932, in Detroit, Michigan) is an American radio personality and voice actor of Druze Lebanese extraction. He has been married to actress/singer Jean Kasem since 1980 and they have one child together, daughter Liberty Kasem. He had three children with his first wife, Linda Myers Kasem (to whom he was married from 1969 to 1979). Their son, Mike Kasem, is also a voice-over actor. Their daughter is television host Kerri Kasem.

Radio

Kasem is best known by name as a music historian and disc jockey, most notably as host of the weekly American Top 40 radio program from 1970 to 1988, and again from March 1998 until January 10 2004, when Ryan Seacrest succeeded him. He hosted a spin-off television show called America's Top 10 for a time in the 1980s. He was the host of the short-lived American version of 100% in 1999. For a period in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Kasem was the staff announcer for the NBC television network. More recently, he has appeared on infomercials about CD music compilations. Kasem was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1992. He is a graduate of Wayne State University.

Currently, Kasem is the host of "American Top 10", a weekly 3-hour countdown show for Adult Contemporary hits, syndicated through the Premiere Radio Network. Interestingly enough, Ryan Seacrest would sometimes guest host for Kasem before taking over the hosting duties of "American Top 40".

Casey Kasem developed his rock-trivia persona from his work as a disc jockey in the early 1960s at KEWB in Oakland, California.

Outtakes

A notorious perfectionist in the studio, recordings of a frustrated Kasem in an extended profane rant during a rehearsal for American Top 40 appeared on Negativland's single "U2" . In it, Kasem is heard introducing a U2 single by reading the names and instruments of the entire personnel of the band from a script. Kasem interrupts and says: :This is bullshit! Nobody cares! ... These guys are from England and who gives a shit!

Another notorious Kasem outtake from the September 14 1985 AT40 was also used by Negativland in "U2". It involves reading a "Long Distance Dedication" from a man to his deceased dog "Snuggles." Casey objects to the dedication ("Shannon" by Henry Gross) following an up-tempo song ("Dare Me" by the Pointer Sisters) and explodes: :...I want a goddamn concerted effort to come out of a record that isn't a fucking up-tempo record every time I gotta do a goddamn death dedication! It's the last goddamn time; I want somebody who uses his fucking brain to not come out of a goddamn record... that's up-tempo and I've got to talk about a fucking dog dying!...Boy, is this fucking ponderous man...ponderous, fucking ponderous.

The tape widely circulated among Kasem's fans and on the internet, where it acquired the unofficial name of "The Dead Dog Tape" or the "Snuggles Tape." Though often misunderstood, Kasem is actually objecting to the tempo shift between the previous song and the dedication, not the dedication itself. Despite Kasem's objection, the two mismatched songs were aired as scripted.

Television

Kasem is a prominent voice-over actor, most notably the voice of Shaggy in Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo cartoons from 1969 until 1991. He has done work for many other animated series, such as the voice of Robin in the original Batman
animated series (1968) and the later SuperFriends series, the drummer Groove from The Cattanooga Cats (1969), Alexander Cabot III from Josie and the Pussycats (1970, 1972), and television specials such as Rankin-Bass' Here Comes Peter Cottontail. Kasem has also done many TV commercial voiceovers for products like A&P, Chevron, Ford, Red Lobster, Raid, Hoover vacuum cleaners, Joy dish soap, Heinz Ketchup, Sears, Prestone, Continental airlines, The California Raisin Advisory Board, The National Cancer Institute, and 1976-1988 promos for the NBC television network.

In the 1980s he was a regular voice-actor on The Transformers, before quitting the show in its third season after a dispute regarding the portrayal of Arab characters. He also walked out on his role as Shaggy in 1995, when he was asked to voice Shaggy in a Burger King commercial. Kasem – a vegetarian who believed that Scooby-Doo and Shaggy were setting bad examples for children with their overeating habits – felt that it was no longer appropriate for the character, whom he wished also to be a vegetarian. He returned to the character in 2002, after Hanna-Barbera (or rather Warner Bros.) agreed to portray Shaggy as a strict vegetarian, notwithstanding the fact the Shaggy has been seen by countless viewers gorging himself on any food in sight, including plenty of meat, since 1969.

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Actors - Casey Kasem

Radio

Outtakes

Television

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