Raise a glass for "Where Everybody Knows Your Name"

Three cheers for the theme from "Cheers," winner of Musical March Madness, and therefore the Greatest TV Theme Song of All Time. It attained its crown by beating its final competitor, the theme from "Batman," by 2:1, after demolishing three other very good themes: "Friends," "Sanford and Son," and "The Facts of Life."

And all we can say is: Well, duh.

In fact, we really should have saved ourselves all this trouble of an elaborate online contest in the first place, and just agreed that "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" was going to annihilate any poor little ditty that got in its way. It would have saved not only time, but bandwidth as well.

Oh well, what's done is done. We had to give the others their fair shake after all, didn't we? For all we knew, "The Facts of Life" could have summoned legions of rabid Nancy McKeon fans who would have swamped our Comments section with votes.

But in the end, it was the simple piano chords and uplifting chorus of Gary Portnoy's ballad about "making your way in the world today" that made its way to the top. The full story about how this classic came to be comes from the blog of former "Cheers" writer Ken Levine:

"1981. Songwriter Gary Portnoy had just been fired as a staff writer from a major music publisher. His friend Judy Hart Angelo happened to meet a Broadway producer at dinner one night who needed a score written for a new musical he was producing. They decided to team up. Gary had never written for the theater, Judy had never written a song. Somehow a tape of one of their demo songs found its way to Hollywood and the Charles Brothers. They thought it would be perfect for the theme of the new show they were developing, 'Cheers.'

But that’s not the song you know.

When the Broadway producer found out one of his songs was to be a TV theme, he had a fit and legally blocked Paramount from using it. Crushed, Gary and Judy wrote new songs for 'Cheers.' But none of them connected the way the old one did. Finally, after four or five rejected tunes they submitted “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” and that one struck a chord. But even that’s not the song you know. The original opening lyrics were changed to give it a more universal appeal. These are those original opening lines: Singing the blues when the Red Sox lose/It’s a crisis in your life/On the run ‘cause all your girlfriends/Want to be your wife/And the laundry ticket’s in the wash.

Once the song was written and approved there came the issue of who was going to sing it? Gary had sung the demo. There were those who wanted a big name and others who liked Gary’s rendition. With less than a month to go before the premiere it was decided that Gary would sing it and the arrangement would be simple just like the demo. Surprisingly, the Charles Brothers did not attend the recording session. We were all in the room writing one day when Glen Charles casually mentioned that they were doing the theme on one of the scoring stages.

But their faith in Gary was rewarded. The Portnoy-Angelo theme for 'Cheers' is one of the most memorable in TV history. Several weeks after the premiere, Gary went back into the studio to record a full-length version of the song that actually made the pop charts."

There's nothing else to say really, except thank you to everyone who voted in and suggested other contestants for Musical March Madness. Its success has us thinking about other similar contests we could try in the future, so be sure to suggest any you'd like to see.

We'll wrap things up with the full, extended version of "Where Everybody Knows Your Name," which aired during "Cheers" 200th episode, and was used in this TV Land montage. It celebrates not only the quirky joy of the music, but the rich characters and humor of this truly great sitcom.


-- Adam Reinhard, lifeisfunnybutnothahafunny@gmail.com