Casey Kasem, the sentimental king of the music radio countdown and the television voice of Shaggy on “Scooby-Doo,” died Sunday in Gig Harbor, Wash. He was 82.
He had suffered from Lewy Body disease, a form of progressive dementia, for several years.
Daughter Kerri announced the news of her father’s passing on her Facebook page.
“(O)ur dad Casey Kasem passed away surrounded by family and friends,” wrote Kerri. “Even though we know he is in a better place and no longer suffering, we are heartbroken. …(W)e will miss our dad.”
He became the subject of an ugly family battle when Kerri and his two other adult children from his first marriage moved against his second wife, Jean, in an attempt to take over his care.
In the final weeks of his life, Kerri and Jean feuded over whether to keep feeding and hydrating the ailing Kasem, but a judge last week sided with Kerri, who argued the nutrition was harmful to her father in his last moments.
“Giving food and water to a dying body creates pain and further suffering,” Kerri claimed at the time. “My father can no longer digest foods, and fluids fill his lungs up and will suffocate him.”
A spokesman for Kasem’s daughters — Kerri, Julie and Liberty — said Jean will make funeral and burial arrangements, and Julie has a memorial service planned for Saturday.
Despite the bitter battle in his final weeks during which Jean once threw meat at Kerri, Kasem was remembered for his 40-plus years on the radio and setting the benchmark for contemporary countdown shows.
He would play the top 10, 20 or 40 songs, interspersed with upbeat patter and stories about the artists or records.
He regularly read listener dedications and never apologized for a sentimental style that often dipped into cornball. He ended each show by telling listeners, “Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.”
He had the tone of an enthusiastic conversationalist whose appreciation for the music transcended the traditionally teenage top-40 audience. “A lot of my fans,” he said in a 1998 interview, “are people who have grown up and don’t have as much time to listen to the radio, but still want to keep up with what’s popular. A lot of shows don’t talk to them anymore, but I do.”
“Casey was one in a trillion,” said Rob Durkee, author of the book “American Top 40.” “What made him so great was the way he talked to the listeners. When he told a story, you’d swear he was sitting right next to you. It takes years to understand how to do that, and no one did it like Casey.”
Sean (Hollywood) Hamilton of New York’s WKTU, who does his own countdown show, called Kasem “the godfather of countdowns. Everybody who grew up with the radio knew Casey Kasem. And everybody who does a countdown show learned from him.”
Kasem eventually branched out from the original “American Top 40” to do “Casey’s Top 40,” “Casey’s Hot 20,” “American Top 20” and “American Top 10.”
He also hosted a video-based TV program, “America’s Top 10,” from 1980 to 1989 and 1991-92.
Outside radio, he was the voice of Shaggy from 1969 to 1995 and 2002 to 2009. Among other voiceover gigs, he was Robin in the first animated “Batman” and can be heard on “Josie and the Pussycats.”
He did real-life acting on TV shows that included “Charlie’s Angels” and “Police Story.”
His friendly voice also made him a natural for commercials, and he could be heard on ads that included Ford, Chevy, Red Lobster, Oscar Mayer, Velveeta, Heinz Ketchup, Sears and Dairy Queen.
He did a series of infomercials for music compilation CDs.
“I love to keep busy,” he said in 1998. “But I never forget it’s the countdown that made it all possible.”
The son of Lebanese immigrants who worked in Detroit as grocers, he became an active advocate throughout his life for Arab-Americans.
He quit the “Transformers” television series, he said, because he felt the portrayal of Arab characters was stereotypical and demeaning.
A longtime vegetarian, he refused several jobs that involved promoting meat.
He was a progressive political activist who maintained a strict traditional code for music on “American Top 40.” When George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex” became a No. 1 record, he played it, but never spoke the title.
His family-friendly persona and code made it especially astonishing when an outtake surfaced several years ago from a taping in which Kasem broke into a profane denunciation of everything and everyone in sight.
On Sept. 14, 1985, he was reading a letter from a listener who asked that Kasem dedicate a song to the listener’s recently deceased dog.
Kasem started the dedication, then stopped to complain that it didn’t feel right because he had just played an up-tempo record.
His staff should know better, he yelled, than to slot an up-tempo song before a letter about “a f—ing dead dog.”
The widely circulated rant didn’t affect his popularity, but did become a classic in radio circles. After some time had passed, Kasem would talk about it in interviews with an amused shrug.
On a more serious note, Kasem said he learned radio from the air personalities of his own youth.
“They made radio fun,” he said in 1998. “They made you want to listen to the host as well as the music.”
The popularity of “American Top 40” peaked in the early 1980s and, in 1988 after a contract dispute, the show’s syndicators replaced Kasem with Shadoe Stevens, who had previously been one of his fill-in hosts.
An unhappy Kasem said he had been forced out and soon started a rival countdown show that ran for 10 years before he was reinstated at “American Top 40.”
He eventually wound his programs down to “American Top 20” and “American Top 10,” both of which he ended on July 4, 2009. He was 77 and when he retired, he mostly stayed out of the spotlight.
Many of his shows have been repeated over the years, on satellite radio and elsewhere. His periodic specials, such as “The Top 40 Girls of the Rock Era” or “The Top 40 Beatles Songs” or “The Top 40 Christmas Songs,” have been particularly popular.
Radio was his favorite medium, he said, because “it engages your imagination.”
Merrill Shindler, who wrote for Kasem’s shows for years, told Durkee, “The pleasure of the Casey show is that it was actually a primitive show, a very simple thing with very simple music and connections.”
As news of his death spread Sunday, sympathy poured in from the many fans Kasem had gained in his decades in the limelight.
Satellite radio station SiriusXM began running a marathon of Kasem’s old countdown shows on the program the “70s on 7” shortly after his death was announced.
“Casey Kasem was the undisputed king of weekly music countdown shows and we will miss him,” said Kid Kelly, vice president of music programming for SiriusXM. “He was a giant of radio for decades, becoming for listeners as notable as the music and artists he played.”
Meanwhile, “American Top 40 with Ryan Seacrest” will dedicate next weekend’s shows to Kasem, with highlights from his years as a host.
Kasem is survived by his second wife, Jean, and four children, Mike, Julie, Kerri and Liberty.
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