Trivia / Rick Dees

• Dueling Shows: With Casey Kasem's (and later Shadoe Stevens') American Top 40, and the former's Casey's Top 40 later on. Today it competes with Ryan Seacrest's run on the former series.
• No Budget: On Rick Dees' Top 40, "No budget" was a Catchphrase, the source of a Running Gag (example: Dees explained about a problem with receiving mail, as because there was "no budget", the show could not afford a letter opener), and the name of a fictional record label.
• Screwed by the Network: "Disco Duck" was absent from the airwaves of Memphis, where he was then working as a DJ, for a short period. He was forbidden from playing his own songs out of a fear of conflict of interest and rival stations did not want to be seen as promoting competition. This was eventually lifted when he was fired from his original employers and one of their rivals picked him up.
• What Could Have Been: Originally, Saturday Night Fever producer Robert Stigwood, who owned RSO Records, which released "Disco Duck", offered Dees a slot for "Disco Duck" on the film's soundtrack album, having already been included in the film proper in a dance club scene in which a group of senior citizens are learning to dance disco style. According to Dees, however, his manager at the time refused to allow the song to be on the soundtrack album, out of fears that it would cripple sales of Dees' own album. Dees added that had the song actually been included on the soundtrack album, he would have probably made a lot more money off it as songwriter, given how the soundtrack has sold over 40 million copies worldwide.

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