SATURDAY MORNING MASTERS: CASEY KASEM

CASEY KASEM

(April 27, 1932-June 15, 2014)

Notable Roles: Robin/Dick Grayson, Norville “Shaggy” Rogers, Alexander Cabot III, Bluestreak, Cliffjumper

Born Kemal Amin “Casey” Kasem, he was inspired by the radio show Make Believe Ballroom to pursue a career in radio. His first job was covering sports at Northwestern High School in Detroit before voicing children characters on radio shows run by Wayne State University. In 1952, he was drafted into the Army and sent to Korea where he worked as a DJ/announcer on the Armed Forces Radio Korea Network. Following the war, Kasem returned to Michigan where he began his professional radio career; eventually winding up in California. While at KEWB in Oakland, Kasem served as both the music director and on-air personality. Inspired by a magazine he found in the trash, he created a show that mixed biographical tidbits about the artists and songs he played. Kasem’s career took off in 1963, starring in several low-budget movies and radio dramas, as well as hosting “dance hops” on local television. Those televised appearances attracted Dick Clark, who hired him as co-host of Shebang in 1964, which led to his appearing on other programs. Kasem’s vocal talents ended up driving him towards voice acting, which began with voicing Robin the Boy Wonder for Filmation’s The Adventures of Batman animated series. His breakout, and most well-known role was that of Shaggy Rogers in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! for Hanna-Barbera. He would reprise the role across several series and made-for-TV movies, briefly quitting the role in a dispute over Shaggy being featured in a Burger King commercial (Kasem was vegan and requested Shaggy be at least vegetarian), up until his eventual retirement from voice acting. Kasem also reprised the role of Robin for Hanna-Barbera’s Super Friends franchise. In 1970, Kasem, Don Bustany, Tom Rounds and Ron Jacobs launched the weekly 3-hour radio program American Top 40. The show would count down the week’s 40 biggest hits—according to the Billboard Hot 100 weekly chart—in ascending order to the most popular song. Like his earlier radio show, Kasem included biographical information, trivia, flashbacks, long-distance dedication segments and often used the answer to a trivia question he posed as a hook to keep people tuned in over a commercial break. He would play himself hosting the countdown in a voice cameo role in the 1984 film Ghostbusters. In 1983, Kasem helped found the American Video Awards in the hopes that it would become the Oscars of music videos; but the show only lasted until 1987 (MTV would launch their own awards show in 1984, which is still going as of this writing). In 1988, Kasem left American Top 40 over a contract dispute with ABC Radio Network and started Casey’s Top 40 with Westwood One, as well as Casey’s Hot 20 and Casey’s Countdown. The shows were essentially the same despite their varying lengths, except he used the Radio & Records’ chart. However, when Top 40 was cancelled in 1995, he regained the rights in 1997 and relaunched the program the following year with Premiere Radio Networks, along with two spin-offs both named American Top 20 (one of them eventually being cut down to 10). Along with further television guest-starring roles and various commercials, Kasaem starred as Mark in Battle of the Planets and played several roles in Transformers; eventually leaving the latter when he felt it contained offensive caricatures of Arab countries. From 1989-98, he hosted Nick at Nite’s New Year’s Eve countdown of the top reruns of the year. Kasem retired from Top 40 in 2004, with Ryan Seacrest taking over the show, and in 2009, Premiere ended its partnership with Kasem, cancelling American Top 20 and Top 10. 2009 also found him retiring from regular voice acting; however, he did reprise the role of Shaggy for “The Official BBC Children in Need Medley” uncredited, and Shaggy’s father, Colton Rogers, in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, also uncredited. In 2013, Kasem was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, which left him unable to speak in his final months. He died in 2014. In 1981, Kasem was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1985, he was inducted into the Nation Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame, and the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1992. He also received the Radio Hall of Fame’s first lifetime achievement award in 1997. In 2003, he was awarded the Radio Icon award at the Radio Music Awards.

Saturday Credits:

American Bandstand

The Batman/Superman Hour

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!

Sesame Street

Josie and the Pussycats

Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space

The New Scooby-Doo Movies

Super Friends

Hong Kong Phooey

Emergency +4

The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour

Dynomutt Dog Wonder

Wonderbug

Scooby’s Laff-A-Lympics

What’s New Mr. Magoo?

The All-New Super Friends Hour

Yogi’s Space Race

Jana of the Jungle

Challenge of the Superfirends

The World’s Greatest Superfriends

The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show

Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels

The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show

Richie Rich

Space Stars

The Gary Coleman Show

The Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Puppy Hour

Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo

Superfriends

The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show

Superfriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show

The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries

The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians

The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo

A Pup Named Scooby-Doo

Saved by the Bell

Histeria!

What’s New Scooby-Doo?

Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!

SMF ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION (PART 8)

We continue our third anniversary celebration!

As we celebrate, we figured we'd also take the opportunity to celebrate the various other programs enjoying anniversaries this year (at least at an interval of 5). Some we've covered, some we'll get to covering sooner or later, but all of them represent Saturday morning. As we roll further down the line, we get up there in years as we hit 45. These are the shows your parents (or even grandparents, depending on your age) were enjoying once upon a time.

Take a walk down memory lane with us, and feel free to share your memories in the comments, or over on our Facebook group or Facebook page, or on Twitter @SatMForever. We'd love to hear from you!

Now, without further ado, join us in celebrating...

NOTE: Not all intros available at this time.

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IN OUTER SPACE

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IN OUTER SPACE

(CBS, September 9-December 23, 1972)

Hanna-Barbera Productions

MAIN CAST:

Janet Waldo & Cathy Dougher (singing) – Josie McCoy

Barbara Pariot & Patrice Holloway (singing) – Valerie Smith

Jackie Joseph & Cheryl Ladd (singing) – Melody Valentine

Jerry Dexter – Alan M. Mayberry

Casey Kasem – Alexander Cabot III

Sherry Alberoni – Alexandra Cabot

Don Messick – Sebastian, Bleep

             Josie and the Pussycats became an event; with musicians of various levels of notoriety coming on to play for the series’ soundtrack after producer Danny Janssen defended keeping the character of Valerie (Barbara Pariot & Patrice Holloway) Black when the studio wanted to change her to white. The follow-up season to the show, unfortunately, wasn’t as remarkable.

             For the 1972-73 season, Hanna-Barbera decided to revamp the show; the reason being they could sell a “new” show for a full episode order whereas additional season orders for established shows tended to be roughly half the amount. As depicted in the second opening sequence used, the band was taking promotional photographs in front of a new spaceship when jealous Alexandra (Sherry Alberoni) knocked them all into the capsule and caused it to accidentally take off, leading to Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space.

Bleep, Alan M. and Josie character models.

             Structurally, each episode was the same as the previous series: the Pussycats would end up in a new location (in this case, a planet) where they would stumble upon malevolent forces (in this case, aliens) and have to escape capture during a music-laden chase scene or use their music to defuse a situation. However, the music was not as much of a focus this time around after the failure of the previous series to generate The Archies-level interest in the fictional band. Aside from the new character designs featuring the band in matching space suits, the only new addition to the program was the character of Bleep (Don Messick): a fuzzy alien who spoke only in “bleeps” that Melody (Jackie Joseph & Cheryl Ladd) could understand. He and Alexandra’s cat, Sebastian (also Messick), were depicted as frenemies; usually at odds, but at times getting along. An element of Lost in Space was thrown in by the characters constantly trying to find their way home from uncharted space and none of them having the skill to do so; although Valerie was capable of flying and repairing the ship in general.

Their rocket ship model sheet.

Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space debuted on CBS on September 9, 1972. It was written by Larz Bourne, Tom Dagenais, Phil Davis, Fred Freiberger, Joel Kane, Heywood Kling, Draper Lewis, Dennis Marks and Paul West with the music supplied by Hoyt Curtin. The band’s songs were written by ASCAP songwriter Richard Moyers, who was hired by Hanna-Barbera’s new Musical Development Director Roger Karshner. Many of the designs came from artist Alex Toth with Jerry Eisenberg handling others. The show only ran for a single season of 16 episodes. CBS kept it on its schedule until 1974, but ultimately did not order any further installments. 

 

One of the band's intergalactic foes.

Hanna-Barbera, however, wasn’t quite done with the Archie Comics characters. The Pussycats appeared in a 1973 episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies teaming-up with Scooby (also Messick) and the gang. They were also intended to reunite with Scooby on his team for the Battle of the Network Stars spoof series Laff-A-Lympics, but the rights had expired by then. The Hanna-Barbera series Speed Buggy was notable for recycling several plots from the Josie series.

DVD cover.

Worldvision Home Video released a VHS collection of 3 episodes in 1980, with a second volume in 1985. The episode “Warrior Women of Amazonia” were featured in a clip episode collection of Hanna-Barbera in the United Kingdom. In 2010, Warner Archive released the complete series to DVD as part of their Hanna-Barbera Classics Collection. Reruns of the series aired on the USA Cartoon Express in the mid-80s and joined its parent series on Cartoon Network in 1992. Both series eventually found their way to Boomerang. They returned to television in 2024 as part of the debut line-up of retro animation network MeTV Toons; following and alternating with Josie when episodes ran out. 

Josie, Valerie and Melody in manga style.

Although another attempt to bring Josie to TV has yet to materialize, the Josie comic ran until 1982, ending after 106 issues. The Pussycats continued appearing in various Archie publications, notably as an alternating feature in Archie Giant Series and Archie & Friends. In the early 2000s, Archie experimented with giving the band a manga makeover and a new origin by Tania del Rio. In 2016 the series was given another makeover as part of Archie’s line-wide reboot of its comics. The new series ran for 9 issues and was written by Marguerite Bennett and Cameron Deordio with art by Audrey Mok.

In 2001, Universal Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced a live-action Josie movie. Directed by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan, the film featured Rachel Leigh Cook as Josie McCoy, Tara Reid as Melody Valentine and Rosario Dawson as Valerie Brown as they become embroiled in a government plot to extort teenagers for their hard-earned babysitting money by producing their music laden with subliminal messages. The film was a box office bomb, only earning around $15 million against its $39 million budget. That same year, Cartoon Network created and aired a short called “Musical Evolution” as part of their Groovies series which featured the Pussycats singing the original theme song in different musical styles with accompanying artwork and outfits. The Pussycats returned to live-action in 2017 as recurring characters in the dark TV series Riverdale. The entire band was reimagined with Ashleigh Murray as Josie, Asha Bromfield as Melody and Hayley Law as Valerie; although they still managed to work in the classic theme song from the original series. They also appeared in the spin-off series, Katy Keene.

EPISODE GUIDE:

“Where’s Josie?” (9/9/72) – The band befriends Bleep while Josie is kidnapped by Karnak, who is intent on reconquering the planet Zelc.

“Make Way For the Multi-Men” (9/16/72) – The band must save the queen of a planet of cat people.

“The Sleeping Planet” (9/23/72) – The band helps expose a corrupt Prime Minister in the theft of a device important to planet Arcobia.

“Alien Alan” (9/30/72) – Alan is brainwashed to serve the ruler of a magnet planet.

“The Water Planet” (10/7/72) – The band’s ship is stolen by aliens intent on conquering Earth.

“The Sun Haters” (10/14/72) – The band must stop a race of giants from extinguishing the sun.

“The Mini-Man Menace” (10/21/72) – Robots kidnap the band and take them to the villainous Mitchko.

“The Space Pirates” (10/28/72) – Captain Braggo’s robotic space pirates capture the band’s ship to use to loot and plunder other ships.

“Anything You Can Zoo” (11/4/72) – The band ends up in a zoo on planet Kaltex while the ruler plots to attack Earth.

“Now You See Them, Now You Don’t” (11/11/72) – Aliens that can turn invisible seem unstoppable until Melody develops the same power after chewing gum.

“The Four-Eyed Dragon of Cygnon” (11/18/72) – Two aliens attempt to convince the band to help them against a dragon.

“The Forward Backward People of Xarock” (11/25/72) – Tyran has a weapon that zaps everything into going backwards.

“The Hollow Planet” (12/2/72) – Aliens in a planet-like ship plan to enslave others by using a ray to turn them into children.

“All Hail Goddess Melody” (12/9/72) – The natives of planet Gezzner worship Melody as their goddess due to her resemblance.

“Outer Space Ark” (12/16/72) – The mad scientist Arkapus uses a sonic transmitter to train the local animals into a conquering army.

“Warrior Women of Amazonia” (12/30/72) – A planet ruled by women captures the band and uses mind control to have the girls join their ranks, leaving Alan and Alexander to save them all.

Originally posted in 2015. Updated in 2025.