"Try your luck. Don't be a cluck!"
And now here he is.
Strong enough to bend records with his bare hands.
Able to tell tall tales in a single breath.
It's Super Dees!
Yes, Super Dees, Strange Visitor from another neighborhood,
with powers and abilities far below those of mortal male and female people,
and who, disguised as Rick Dees, mild-mannered disc jockey,
fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the pursuit of loose women!
Strong enough to bend records with his bare hands.
Able to tell tall tales in a single breath.
It's Super Dees!
Yes, Super Dees, Strange Visitor from another neighborhood,
with powers and abilities far below those of mortal male and female people,
and who, disguised as Rick Dees, mild-mannered disc jockey,
fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the pursuit of loose women!
Rick Dees (born Rigdon Osmond Dees III, March 14, 1950) is an American radio host. His Weekly Top 40 competed with Casey Kasem's American Top 40. Dees also contributed to the USA Today syndicated radio program, as an entertainment reporter. He is also well known for his #1 hit single "Disco Duck," a Satire of the Disco trend, credited to Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots. He has been married to voice actress Julie McWhirter since 1977.
Tropes:
- Audience Participation: The Weekly Top 40 Challenge, which generally involved Rick playing a small snippet of a song (usually sped up, slowed down, or even reversed), movie or a celebrity interview and asking for the name or title. Nowadays the Challenge mostly involves trivia questions related to the world of music and entertainment. The Challenge can be taken at the show's official website, Rick.com
. - Catchphrase:
- Cloudcuckoolander: A good chunk of the regular Weekly Top 40 characters with Dees, himself a self-admitted moron, having to be the straight man among them, hence the "Cast of Idiots" moniker.
- Denser and Wackier: Than the more staid American Top 40, which helped it to stand out during its competing years with the Casey Kasem and Shadoe Stevens eras of that program. Akin to his morning show, each episode would feature skits, vocal impressions, and deadpan remarks from Dees and his "Cast of Idiots". The humor aspect (as well as the Cast) would gradually be dropped throughout The New '10s and '20s (partially to better match the dueling Ryan Seacrest era of AT40).
- Full-Name Basis: Weekly Top 40's scatterbrained elderly engineer Willard Weisman would always introduce himself like this, to the dismay and annoyance of Rick and everyone else. His appearances usually end with Harmless Electrocution after fiddling with the microphone wires against Rick's wishes.
- Gratuitous Japanese: One clip that popped up on occasion during the early years of the Weekly Top 40 was that of a Japanese woman angrily ranting. Rick somehow was able to understand this a few times.
- Jingle: Just like American Top 40, Weekly Top 40 would have some these in the form of commercial bumpers and music bedsnote that Dees and his cast of idiots would talk over. Some cuts in the later 80s to early 90s would also ape some popular singers like Michael Jackson (who was also a recurring character on the show).
- Man of a Thousand Voices: Weekly Top 40 exploits this between both him and Julie with the number of characters and impressions they pull off.
- Opening Narration: Quoted above. From the show's debut until sometime in the very early-'90s, Weekly Top 40 and his morning show on KISS-FM began with a Parody/Pastiche in which John Williams' score from Superman: The Movie underscored a riff on the old serials' opening narration.
- Parody Commercial: An "ad" announced the release of a new Comedy album, Hurt Me Baby. Make Me Write Bad Checks. On what record label? Why, No Budget of course!
- Punny Name: Recurring characters in The '80s, most of them falling into No Celebrities Were Harmed territory, includes "radio aerobics" instructor Jane Fondle (Jane Fonda) and regular caller John Revolting (John Travolta).
- Satire: "Disco Duck" was this for the Disco genre. It also served to make him a
One-Hit Wonder as far as his music career was concerned with his second attempt "Discorilla" not hitting high on the charts and later attempts in the 80s, one being about people getting naked, barely even making it into the charts at all. - Sexy Secretary: Candy, The Ditz, wore a bikini for her first day on the job.
- Sound-Effect Bleep: Using the sound "cuckoo." He also got around with announcing George Michael's "I want Your Sex" by using a Pac-Man sound effect where "Sex" would be said.
- Special Guest: At least Once an Episode, with the guest either talking about a hit they had on the countdown or coming in to announce the number 1 song at the end of the show that week.
- Verbal Tic:
- The "Dees Sleaze" segment of the Weekly Top 40 made much use of a soundclip of a senior-sounding male character, ostensibly the show's "boss", saying "Yes." This clip ended up being convenient whenever Yes had a hit on the chart.
- Similarly, there was "OUTRAGEOUS! News", which made much use of an out-of-context soundclip of Lionel Richie exclaiming "OUTRAGEOUS!" from one of his interviews.
