Casey and Shadoes signoffs

[adam31]

I've read on this site and heard on youtube the way Casey signed off in 2009.

Also I know about him having no fanfare in 1988, except for not saying "join me next week".

Can someone tell me how Shadoe mentioned AT40 was cancelled, if he even did? Just curious how it was handled.

Also wondering about any more details about how Casey's Top 40 was began and ended (behind the scenes stuff). Heard Casey was sued by Westwood One but never could find how it ended.

[Mike]

Oct 18, 2011 22:49:48 GMT -5 adam31 said:

Also I know about him having no fanfare in 1988, except for not saying "join me next week".

Can someone tell me how Shadoe mentioned AT40 was cancelled, if he even did? Just curious how it was handled.

Also wondering about any more details about how Casey's Top 40 was began and ended (behind the scenes stuff). Heard Casey was sued by Westwood One but never could find how it ended.

Re: 1988 - While he had no fanfare in leaving, ABC subtly began removing their references to Casey on the show. During the final weeks, you wouldn't hear "Casey's Coast to Coast" anywhere, only "The Hits From Coast to Coast" (as reflected in the 7/16/88 show aired back in July, with the sole exception of Premiere's extras).

Not sure if Shadoe came right out and mentioned that the show would be ending, but before playing the #1 song, he played a special LDD to the show's fans: James Brown's "So Tired of Standing Still, We Got to Move On". And the background music during the closing credits was "Happy Trails" by Roy Rogers. These are from the 1/28/95 show; doubtful that any special mentions or anything was done for the U.S.A. cancellation on 7/9/94.

As for Casey's Top 40:
Beginning - Casey and ABC/Watermark were unable to agree to terms on a new contract or contract extension, so Casey chose to leave them, preferring the offer that Westwood One made to him at the time. The show began on January 21, 1989. Casey initially called the show "CT40" for short, but he and Westwood One were sued by ABC because it sounded too similar to "AT40". This may be the lawsuit you're thinking of.

Ending - In early 1998, the rights to American Top 40 had reverted back from ABC to Casey himself, since the show had been off the air for three years at that point. Casey pitched the idea to turn Casey's Top 40 into American Top 40, and Westwood One flatly refused. I have no idea if lawsuits were involved or not, someone else may be able to verify that. What I do know is that Casey took himself and the American Top 40 name to AM/FM radio networks (later absorbed by Clear Channel and Premiere), and the show relaunched on March 28. During the final weeks of Casey's Top 40, which saw the show as just "The Top 40 Countdown" for its last two weeks, guest hosts filled in, even though Casey had already left Westwood One for good.

This is all I know for sure - if Pete sees this thread, he'd be able to help you more.

[Caseyfan4everRyanfanNever]

On the 1/28/95 AT40 show (the last with Shadoe), Shadoe said "welcome to the LAST American Top 40" and then talked about what they decided to do for that last show. There were actually many reminders throughout that show of that being the last American Top 40. (nobody knew at the time that AT40 would return a little over three years later).

Unlike the last Shadoe show, Casey didn't really want to call attention to the fact that the Aug 6, 1988 AT40 show was his last--nor did he make any announcement that the 1/21/89 CT40 show was his first. As Rob says in his book, Casey and WW1 wanted everyone to believe that Casey never stopped counting down the hits. On the first CT40 show in July 1989, Casey made reference to that being the beginning of his "twentieth year of counting down the hits." On the first show of Jul 1999, over a year after Casey and AT40 were reunited, Casey noted that this was the beginning of his "thirtieth year of counting down the hits". In other words, when setting anniversaries, Casey counted all years "counting down the hits", not just number of years with AT40 or CT40. The emphasis on Casey's total years of counting down the hits followed him to AMFM/Premiere and the idea of Casey and AT40 being together from 1970 to 2004 could play a big role in any decision on whether the shows from the 1990s (and if so, which ones) will be rebroadcast in the future.

[mkarns]

Oct 19, 2011 14:17:25 GMT -5 Caseyfan4everRyanfanNever said:

On the 1/28/95 AT40 show (the last with Shadoe), Shadoe said "welcome to the LAST American Top 40" and then talked about what they decided to do for that last show. There were actually many reminders throughout that show of that being the last American Top 40. (nobody knew at the time that AT40 would return a little over three years later).

Unlike the last Shadoe show, Casey didn't really want to call attention to the fact that the Aug 6, 1988 AT40 show was his last--nor did he make any announcement that the 1/21/89 CT40 show was his first. As Rob says in his book, Casey and WW1 wanted everyone to believe that Casey never stopped counting down the hits. On the first CT40 show in July 1989, Casey made reference to that being the beginning of his "twentieth year of counting down the hits. In short, CT40 was the logical successor to AT40 with Casey. On the first show of Jul 1999, over a year after Casey and AT40 were reunited, Casey noted that this was the beginning of his "thirtieth year of counting down the hits". In other words, when setting anniversaries, Casey counted all years "counting down the hits", not just number of years with AT40 or CT40. The emphasis on Casey's total years of counting down the hits followed him to AMFM/Premiere and the idea of Casey and AT40 being together from 1970 to 2004 could play a big role in any decision on whether the shows from the 1990s (and if so, which ones) will be rebroadcast in the future.

There's a YouTube clip of Casey's last-ever AT40 signoff, recorded in December 2003 and broadcast on January 3-4, 2004. It's handled the same as his 1988 departure; no invitation to join him next week (though he continued his adult contemporary shows for 5 1/2 more years), but no mention of him leaving or of Ryan Seacrest's imminent succession.

Premiere of course has continued Casey's pattern of counting all his years of counting down the hits, treating them as AT40 even when they weren't originally named as such; thus in July 2010 Ryan commemorated 40 consecutive years of AT40 which can only be accurate if you count CT40 (to that end, AT40 today uses CT40's Radio & Records data when citing chart statistics.)

[tarobe]

So in a sense, the 1988-1995 American Top 40 with Shadoe Stevens is the "lost episodes," as Premiere considers only Casey's shows.

[Caseyfan4everRyanfanNever]

From reading Rob's book (and I strongly encourage those who haven't read it to do so), I get the impression that ABC Watermark executives had high hopes for Shadoe and Shadoe was prepared to do his best. But several factors caused AT40 to decline while Shadoe was host (few, if any, of which were Shadoe's fault), led ABC to give up on the show. As a result, AT40 was off the air for over 3 years. As a result, including Shadoe in their idea of the AT40 historical narrative, would force Premiere to admit that AT40 was not as successful as they want it to be perceived, even though Premiere did not become the owner of AT40 until 2000 or 2001.

Casey did mention Shadoe as a past host on the May 13 2000 show when he talked about Rob's book and there have been some hints that Shadoe was the host of the AT40 at one time when Ryan celebrated the recent 40th anniversary of AT40. But all through AT40 history, even when Casey was hosting CT40, AT40 shows usually, if not always, end with the statement "AT40 was created by Casey Kasem and Don Bustany"

Regardless of any hope to allow Shadoe to be forgotten, he never will be. Many fans of AT40 collect Shadoe's shows alongside Casey's shows, including myself and AT40Fantoo (Ev) has put together a website covering the Shadoe AT40 years. Some fans probably identify AT40 fully with Casey-those would consider CT40 to be the replacement for AT40 with Casey in the years he was away from the show, thus considering the Shadoe years as a separate show. Others would probably see AT40 as having a variety of hosts and would see CT40 as a totally separate show for collection purposes.

[matt]

That whole sequence does make things interesting in trying to summarize the history of AT40. If Casey hadn't insisted in returning to AT40 in 1998, it would be a lot tougher to minimize Shadoe's time as host. The fact that CT40 was running at the same time throughout the 90's, and followed such a similar format in terms of jingles, content, dedications, etc., then returned the show to AT40, AND the charts for each show (AT40 and CT40) eventually ended up focused on radio airplay charts rather than the Hot 100, does allow for the Shadoe years to be semi-replaced by CT40, and Casey's time with it all to be justified as a continuous run.

A person has to feel bad for Shadoe--he was a good host, but was not set up well to succeed, given the change in charts, competition from Casey and Rick Dees, the games played by the "guys with the ties" at ABC radio, and mostly the fact that Casey's shoes were too tough to fill for most AT40 fans.

[Shadoe Fan]

I do my best to keep Shadoe's reign of AT40 from being overlooked. As caseyfan4ever stated, that's why I created my website.

[jaxxalude]

The recap of Shadoe's signoff truly brings back memories of when I listened to it back in the day. It's obvious that he was trying to convey a message of optimism in the face of what was obviously the end of an era to his listeners. However, with the benefit of that information highway called the Internet, I can now see how that James Brown song was, in many ways, an illustration of Shadoe's relief at finally stepping down from a show that never really treated him with the respect he deserved.

[Caseyfan4everRyanfanNever]

My apologies--forgot that "AT40Fantoo" is now "HotACChartGuru". He does a great job on Casey's Hot AC shows too. Check out all of his work at www.at40fan.info. Hope to see a book or two from all of Ev's hard work one of these days.

[Deleted]

In Latin America and Spain AT40 was really big with Shadoe. You can see AT40 fans looking for Shadoe ´s AT40 shows and dont care about Casey at all in Spain and some Latin American countries were Shadoe was and is huge, a legend.

[shadoeargentina]

I agree with JCAragon. I'm from Argentina and found the AT40 in December `88, the first days of Shadoe. For many, many years, for me, "AT40 mean Shadoe". Thanks to the new life of the show with Flashback, ClearChannel and open the vaults, I've learned to appreciate Casey. There is no doubt that with two different styles, both have great the AT40. I guess maybe the best choice to replace Casey should have been Charlie Van Dyke. But in 1988 the music was changing, rap music growing very fast , Guns N Roses, hair metal, New Jack Swing .... Maybe Shadoe style was the most suitable for those times