Casey Streak

[Timo]

Casey has now been counting down in the two AT shows for at least 20 weeks in a row (I got lost in my counts somewhere along the way).

This makes me wonder what is the longest streak he's been hosting the shows without a substitute host. If I've understood correctly, at the very beginning of "American Top 40" history, he did it over a year without a break, but what about after that?

[MEF]

I hope the streak won't end. I might jinx this.

The last time Casey took a week off was Presidents day weekend of 2004. So Casey went a full year not taking a week off.

[Timo]

Yep. Looks like he's making a new page for himself in the "AT10 Book Of Records"

[Deleted]

We talked about this on a another message thread a few weeks ago, I thin the general consensus was with not having to do AT40 any longer his schedule is probably more conducive to doing just the two 3 hour shows thus he is absent a lot less. Or maybe he is planning to build up his vacation weeks for the remaining of his contract and take a pay out at the end ;D

[Timo]

Paul said:

We talked about this on a another message thread a few weeks ago...

Yeah, I noticed that too, but since no one ever really answered my original question, I thought I'd put my comment here.

[Alfred]

The Record is 61 wks from 4-29-95 to 6-29-96 during his CT40 (Westwood One) Years.

Casey's current streak is only 58 weeks from 1-24-04 to this weekend. So he's only 4 weeks shy of extending the streak.

But that would look lame to the world's most prolific Radio Countdown DJ Australian Barry Bissell counted down - Take 40 Australia from June 1984 to Sept 2003 - 1,059 shows (or weeks) and had only been absent 7 times! A world's record in my book - 1,052 weeks.

[Timo]

Thanks for this exciting information, Alfred! I really appreciate it.

[Hervard]

Alfred said:

The Record is 61 wks from 4-29-95 to 6-29-96 during his CT40 (Westwood One) Years.

Casey's current streak is only 58 weeks from 1-24-04 to this weekend. So he's only 4 weeks shy of extending the streak.

Actually, it was February 14-15 that Casey last took a week off (same week that the show was originally rumored to become a Top Ten show)

[BrettVW]

I thought Casey's original run in 1970-1971 was his longest streak w/o a guest host.

[Scott Lakefield]

Alfred said:

The Record is 61 wks from 4-29-95 to 6-29-96 during his CT40 (Westwood One) Years.

Hate to be the one to burst this bubble, but I've been working on converting the CT40 shows from 1996 from tape to CD over the past few months, and today began working on the 1/21/96 show...which is hosted by David Perry.

I didn't get to listen to CT40 much in the year 1995, but other years showed Casey off on average every month to six weeks or so, with some exceptions. This continued through 2004, except for the spring ratings periods, when Casey often didn't go on vacation for a few months at a time. Thus, his current 52-week run is I'm pretty sure his longest since his first guest host on AT40 in 1971.

[BrettVW]

I have a CH20 from August of 1995 that is hosted by David Perry as well.

Scott nailed it right. Casey would take 3 or 4 shows off before April, when he would stay on until around the 4th of July, before starting his 3-6 week cycle again for the rest of the year. But that all ended in 2004.

As I said in a previous post, a few weeks ago I exchanged emails with Ed McMann who said he has heard nothing about coming to host the show in the future. We may just see the original streak get broken.

[BrettVW]

Thought I would revisit this one. How time flies. We are now enjoying the 62nd consecutive weekend of Casey Kasem counting down the hits. Have we hit a new record yet? According to my calculations, no.

I checked and rechecked, but still might be wrong - but I count the longest Casey streak as 69 weeks of hosting, starting on the weekend of July 4, 1970 and ending on October 30, 1971. As we know, the first guest hosted American Top 40 was the weekend of November 6, 1971, and was guest hosted by Dave Hull.

So - in order for Casey to break his streak - he will have to host the shows up through the weekend of June 18, 2005, which will bring him to 70 consecutive weeks hosting. And I see this happening - as even in the days of taking off once a month - he was always on the shows from the end of March through mid July for the spring ratings period.

Should be interesting to see if after all these years of the original American Top 40, Casey's Top 40, Casey's Countdown, Casey's Hot 20, the re-birth of American Top 40, American Top 20 and now American Top 10....will Casey host the shows without a week off in a streak longer than he did in the shows beginning stages when the only reason he was on so long is because the staff did not want a guest host? We'll find out, as the countdown rolls on!!

[Deleted]

for some reason everytime I read this post, it reminds me of the ESPN Gameday commercial where all the people were telling the GUY twirling the baton to do it one more time and egging him on! I see us as the people and Casey continuing without a guest as the baton twirling dude.

[svoigt]

Might it perhaps be possible, that Casey is taping the programme on his holiday location - for example at one of the affiliates - and simply sends his parts to Hollywood (like many other hosts do already since years)?

Rick Dees has nearly never been away from the microphone over the last years with the "Weekly Top 40" programme just to name one example.

[BrettVW]

That is a possibility...but why would he not have done this in years past?

Also - Rick Dees takes plenty of time off, but rather than have substitute hosts he prerecords special countdowns, such as his infamous "All Request Specials"....or he will pre-track voicetracks and then a celebrity co-host will come and do the show, generally mentioning all of the chart numbers....and then they will insert Rick's pretracked segments and it gives the impression that Rick and the celebrity co-hosted the show together.