Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Saturday Morning's Greatest Hits: Disco Duck (1976)

Los Angeles-based radio DJ Rick Dees first entered the public consciousness in 1976 with the novelty record, "Disco Duck". Dees would later parlay "Duck" into a gig hosting Solid Gold before launching a radio countdown show, The Weekly Top 30, which I believe is still running today. Dees made one of his first TV appearances on American Bandstand, uploaded by the appropriately named DiscoLarry124.

Dees would also try his hand at voice work, starting with the abysmal (not his fault) Casper & the Angels, in which his wife, impressionist Julie McWhirter (ex-Wacko!) voiced the iconic Friendly Ghost. Not too sure about any further toon work for Dees, who apparently is most at home on the radio........

2 comments:

magicdog said...

Rick Dees was often seen as the clown prince of Rock & Roll (well, disco at least).

I used to listen to his weekly Top 40 show back in the 80s (in my market it ran on Sunday mornings, while Casey Kasem's Top 40 ran Saturday afternoons) and he and his wife Julie Dees frequently peppered the show with imitations of various celebs. Julie used to do a perfect impersonation of Gracie Allen!

He also had the "Dees Sleaze" segment which was reserved for gossip about celebs.

He's still a DJ and has a syndicated top 40 gig. His original one was taken over by Ryan Seacrest if you can believe it!

hobbyfan said...

Seacrest, the busiest guy in show biz these days, took over American Top 40 from Casey Kasem when Casey retired a couple of years back, but when did he take over Rick Dees' old show?

I do remember the Dees Sleaze feature when WT30 aired on Saturdays in Albany for a while in the late 90's. Didn't pay much attention, though.