Guest Host/Creative Show Control

[pzimm7700]

I don't know why, but I got to thinking about when Mark Elliott and David Perry sat in for Casey Kasem during the CT40 days. Casey rarely, if ever, played the previous weeks #1 song once the show had established it's own identity. On the other hand, guest hosts did quite regularly. Was this a case of the voice tracks being faster with guest host than that of Casey Kasem, was it a case where the guest host was able to run the show how they saw fit in some instances, or was it something else? Just curious as to why this occurred.

[Scott Lakefield]

In the era that this was happening, there was a simple 1:1 ratio reason for the difference...Casey played three R&Ds per week. Guest hosts did just two, hence the room for the playing of LW#1.

[pzimm7700]

Jul 1, 2008 12:50:22 GMT -5 Scott Lakefield said:

In the era that this was happening, there was a simple 1:1 ratio reason for the difference...Casey played three R&Ds per week. Guest hosts did just two, hence the room for the playing of LW#1.

Ah, didn't notice they were only playing 2. Ok, so my next question is what that a guest host decision to do that or WW1's?

[Scott Lakefield]

Probably WW1's. Don't think the guest hosts had much input. I recall reading in Rob's book in the section about the infamous incident where David Perry declared "I'm Casey Kasem" that the hosts were told not to vary from the script.

[robert]

I have always thought that the reason was exactly as stated by Scott, i.e. only two LDDs by guest hosts.

In fact, if you go back to those earlier CT40 shows hosted by Casey himself, you probably wouldn't find more than 2 LDDs or extras on the shows that he started with playing the last week's number 1 song. And similarly, I don't think there was a show with 3 dedications that would have last week's number one at the beginning played. But of course there might have been some exception to the rule.

[Adrian]

I suspect there's a more subtle reason why GHs only had 2 R&Ds to read. It could be that the listerners sending in their R&Ds would rather have Casey read it, so on guest-hosted shows, we end up listening to just 2 instead of the usual 3. Just my 2 cents opinion. I'm trying to recall if that practice continued even with Casey joining AM/FM Radio Networks for the modern AT40/20 shows.

[robert]

I guess in the new era even guest hosts did 3 LDDs per show but it's true that I haven't listened to any of those years' show for a while.

[Scott Lakefield]

Jul 7, 2008 19:07:35 GMT -5 Adrian said:

I suspect there's a more subtle reason why GHs only had 2 R&Ds to read. It could be that the listerners sending in their R&Ds would rather have Casey read it, so on guest-hosted shows, we end up listening to just 2 instead of the usual 3. Just my 2 cents opinion. I'm trying to recall if that practice continued even with Casey joining AM/FM Radio Networks for the modern AT40/20 shows.

It didn't.

[robert]

Thanks, Scott, I wasn't sure.