Alf Clausen, the veteran composer with two Emmy wins and 30 nominations whose whimsical scores brightened such tv sequence as The Simpsons, Moonlighting and, purely coincidentally, ALF, has died. He was 84.
Clausen died Thursday at his Valley Village residence in Los Angeles, his daughter, Kaarin Clausen, instructed The Hollywood Reporter. He was identified with progressive supranuclear palsy about eight years in the past, she mentioned.
From The Simpsons‘ second season in 1990 till its twenty eighth in 2017, Clausen crafted most of the spirited melodies that contributed to the cutting-edge lunacy of the Fox animated present. From 23 Emmy nominations, he — together with lyricist Ken Keeler — received in 1997 and ’98 for the songs “We Put the Spring in Springfield” and “You’re Checkin’ In (A Musical Tribute to the Betty Ford Heart).”
His harmonious relationship with the present wouldn’t final, nonetheless, with Clausen submitting a lawsuit in opposition to Disney and Fox in August 2019 after he was dismissed from The Simpsons.
Clausen’s breakthrough as a TV composer got here in 1985 on the ABC sequence Moonlighting. Again then, he had spent years doing a bit little bit of every part, from music directing and orchestrating to creating further music for movie and tv tasks.
Lee Holdridge, who wrote the music for the Moonlighting theme tune carried out by Al Jarreau, requested sequence creator Glenn Gordon Caron to make use of Clausen. Caron did so, however to hedge his bets, he employed one other composer to alternate episodes with Clausen. By the fourth present, the opposite composer was let go and Clausen ended up scoring the sequence all through its five-season run.
Moonlighting‘s revolutionary construction supplied a variety of challenges for Clausen. The 1985 episode “The Dream Sequence All the time Rings Twice” provided movie noir flashbacks (filmed in black and white) set in a Nineteen Forties nightclub, with Cybill Shepherd, backed by an enormous band, singing a sultry torch tune as co-star Bruce Willis performed trumpet. The subsequent 12 months’s “Atomic Shakespeare” served up a music-filled parody of The Taming of the Shrew in medieval occasions. Clausen obtained Emmy noms for these episodes, then landed two extra in 1988 and ’89.
In the meantime, Clausen additionally took on composing duties for ALF. He supplied the theme song and scored the 100-plus episodes of the quirky 1986-90 NBC sitcom a few joke-cracking, alien life type (ALF) portrayed as a shaggy puppet. (Requested if ALF was named after him, Clausen’s normal reply was, “No, however I granted them the rights to make use of my face as a likeness!)
Clausen initially resisted The Simpsons‘ gig when it was first provided in 1990. The present, which had simply concluded its first season (its opening theme was written by Danny Elfman), appeared too light-heartedly in comparison with what he had carried out the previous 5 years.
“I used to be posed the query, ‘Would you want to attain an animated present?’ and I mentioned, ‘No,’” Clausen recalled throughout a 2015 dialog for the Television Academy Foundation website The Interviews. “I mentioned, ‘I simply acquired off of 4 years of Moonlighting, and I actually need to be a drama composer. I’m extra all for doing longform characteristic movies.’”
However sequence creator Matt Groening satisfied Clausen that The Simpsons was simply what he was on the lookout for.
“We glance on our present as being, not a cartoon, we glance upon it as a drama the place the characters are drawn,” Groening instructed Clausen. “And we wish it scored that means. May you try this?’ And I mentioned, ‘Yeah, I might try this.’”
Groening wished the music to all the time replicate the emotion of the characters, not the motion on the display. “He mentioned he didn’t need it scored like a typical Warner Bros. cartoon. He didn’t need it scored like a typical Disney cartoon,” Clausen mentioned. “He wished one thing totally different.”
Clausen’s first project was the 1990 episode “Treehouse of Horror.” He mentioned he was delighted that it offered the chance for 42 musical cues and that the producers didn’t flinch when he requested a double recording session to generate them.
He saved The Simpsons buzzing for 550-plus episodes and scored utilizing a dwell, full orchestra. Among the many many memorable ditties he wrote alongside the way in which have been “Vote for a Winner,” “See My Vest,” “All the time My Dad,” “Ode to Branson” and “Union Strike People Tune (Components 1 and a couple of).”
“The Garbage Man,” a parody of “The Sweet Man” that he wrote for a 1998 episode, was carried out by none aside from U2.
In a 2012 interview, Clausen remembered that with all of the authorized, manufacturing and publicity individuals from the present, the studio and the band, there will need to have been about 50 of us within the sales space in the course of the recording session.
“We did the primary take of the tune and Bono did a very good job of it, however there have been a pair issues I knew might be higher,” Clausen mentioned. “He and I acquired alongside rather well, we bonded from the second we met. So when he completed the primary take, I acquired on the talkback to him out within the studio and mentioned, ‘Boy, that was actually good. However, you already know, I believe you are able to do a greater one.’
“And I hear 50 individuals behind me collectively gasp! They couldn’t consider I used to be telling Bono that he might file a greater take. However he and I have been used to being within the recording studio and accustomed to the method concerned in doing recordings. We understood we have been there to get the very best take, and he was effective with it.”
U2 carried out on ‘The Simpsons’ beneath Alf Clausen’s watch in 1998.
twentieth Century Fox Movie Corp. All rights reserved. /Courtesy Everett Assortment
Alf Heiberg Clausen was born in Minneapolis on March 28, 1941. His mom, Magdalene, was on a weekend break from her grasp’s research at Iowa State College and buying in a division retailer when she went into labor.
He lived in Ames, Iowa, till his mother earned her diploma, at which level the household relocated to Jamestown, North Dakota. His dad, additionally named Alf, was an occupational therapist for town’s psychological hospital. His mother labored for Stutsman County serving to residents take care of legal guidelines governing homeownership.
Clausen grew up loving toy trains, automobiles and music. He took piano classes at an early age, and two of his favourite actions have been listening to his dad and mom’ orchestral file assortment on their Victrola and watching American Bandstand on the household’s new TV set.
Within the seventh grade, he was assigned the French horn, which turned his instrument of selection via highschool.
At North Dakota State College, Clausen pursued a mechanical engineering diploma however modified his main to music after he spent a summer season with a musician cousin in New York and skilled My Honest Girl, West Aspect Story and The Music Man on Broadway and live shows that includes the likes of Miles Davis.
Whereas working towards his grasp’s on the College of Wisconsin, Clausen enrolled in a correspondence course at Boston’s Berklee School of Music to check arranging and composition. He discovered he loved creating music greater than enjoying it and moved to Boston to check full-time at Berklee. Finally, he additionally taught there.
Clausen headed to Los Angeles in 1967, performed professionally round city and supplemented his earnings as a music copyist on Planet of the Apes (1968), M*A*S*H (1970), The Carol Burnett Present and The Partridge Household.
In 1976, a colleague helped him get his foot within the door as an arranger for ABC’s Donny & Marie, and he was promoted to musical director for the present’s third season. He then turned the musical director for an additional selection present, 1979’s The Mary Tyler Moore Hour.
As his status grew, Clausen spent the following a number of years orchestrating and composing for options together with Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), Splash (1984), Bizarre Science (1985), Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) and Dragnet (1987) and scored episodes of Fame, Wizards and Warriors and Companions in Crime.
Clausen’s lengthy affiliation with The Simpsons ended on a bitter observe when it was introduced in 2017 that he was being let go. Bleeding Fingers Music, a composer collective co-owned by Hans Zimmer, changed him; the transfer minimize the present’s music finances by 40 p.c as dwell orchestrations have been supplanted by synthesized music.
The five-time Annie Award winner sued Disney and its Fox divisions, claiming age discrimination whereas attacking Zimmer’s firm for creating Simpsons music “inferior in high quality, depth, vary and sound, but stylistically comparable in substance.” He amended his go well with in April 2020 to claim he additionally was fired due to a perceived incapacity, Parkinson’s illness.
Fox and Simpsons executives countered, saying they have been dissatisfied with Clausen’s work on a 2017 hip-hop-themed episode, “The Nice Phatsby,” citing his unfamiliarity with newer types of music and a priority that the present might lose its relevance.
A choose dismissed the age discrimination declare however allowed Clausen to pursue different parts of the go well with, together with wrongful discharge, retaliation and unfair enterprise practices. Nevertheless, he settled in February 2022.
Along with his daughter, survivors additionally embrace his spouse, Sally, whom he married in 1993; former spouse Judy; two sons, Kyle and Scott; stepchildren Joshua and Emily; sister, Faye; 11 grandchildren; and a niece and nephew.