1973

[BROWNJB1]

1973 was one of the most important years in AT40's history. A lot of interesting things happened on the show that year:

1. AT40 began turning a profit.

2. AT40's first spinoff, American Country Countdown debuted.

3. AT40 aired "The Top 40 Disappearing Acts" countdown aired. It was the special that helped establish the show as a weekend radio fixture for years to come.

4. Casey became a vegetarian.

5. The show switched from mono to stereo broadcasting.

6. Casey began mentioning the program's chart date in the show's closing

7. A new theme music debuted, and it was used for the closing for all 3 hours. By the way, the new theme that debuted in 1973, is my all-time favorite AT40 fan.

8. And last, but certainly not least, although AT40 started using new "American Top 40-Casey's Coast-to-Coast" split logo jingles in December 1972, they started using those logo jingles exclusively in 1973, which by the way, is my all-time favorite logo jingles in the show's history.

[Deleted]

Why would Casey becoming a vegetarian be important to the history of AT40? He didn't eat burgers and steaks on the air.

[BrettVW]

No, but he did eat his script sometime in 2002

[at40petebattistini]

If you have a copy of my book, turn to page 149. There's an AT40 ad from a 1975 issue of Billboard that promoted local advertisering, including a hamburger chain in Waterloo, Iowa. As part of the ad, there's a photograph of Casey eating a hamburger. Or at least pretending to.

[BROWNJB1]

Okay, maybe mentioning that Casey became a vegetarian in 1973 was stretching it a little bit, by hey, Rob Durkee mentioned it in his book. I just thought I would bring it up, just for the heck of it.