Alf Clausen obit

Alf Clausen Dies: ‘The Simpsons’ & ‘Moonlighting’ Composer Who Won Two Emmys Was 84

 He was not on the list.

Alf Clausen, who won a pair of Emmys as composer for The Simpsons from 1990-2017 and also composed music for Moonlighting, ALF, The Critics and many other TV shows and films, died Thursday of Parkinson’s disease. He was 84 and had been diagnosed in 2020.

His daughter Kaarin Clausen announced the news on social media. “He left a huge mark on this world and has touched the lives of millions, and I’m so proud to call him ‘Dad,’” she wrote in part. “Rest easy, Maestro. I will miss you every day.”

Clausen wrote music for nearly 600 episodes of Fox’s landmark toon The Simpsons, starting early in its second season, though Danny Elfman penned its iconic theme song. He won back-to-back Emmys in 1997 and 1998 and earned 30 career nominations, including a half-dozen for the 1980s ABC Moonlighting starring Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd. He also won five Annie Awards and seven ASCAP Film & TV Music Awards for The Simpsons. In 2011, Clausen was awarded ASCAP’s Golden Note Award, which is presented to songwriters, composers, and artists who have achieved extraordinary career milestones.

“If you’re looking for an easy 9-to-5 job, this is not for you,” Clausen said in a 2015 interview with the Television Academy Foundation. “If you’ve got the burn for music composition, and when you get the burn there’s hardly anything like it, it’s the most fun you can have dressed. Go for it. Just go for it.”

Born on March 28, 1941, in Minneapolis and raised in North Dakota watching American Bandstand, Clausen moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in TV composing. He started out working as a copyist for feature films and variety shows, including The Carol Burnett Show.

He did orchestrations for a 1975 episode of Norman Lear’s All in the Family spinoff Maude and later worked on Donny & Marie before becoming music director for fellow variety series The Mary Tyler Moore Hour in 1979.

Into the 1980s, Clausen would go on to do orchestrations for such feature films as Airplane II: The Sequel, Mr. Mom, Splash, The Last Starfighter, Weird Science, Wise Guys, The Naked Gun and its first sequel Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and the Dave Chappelle starrer Half Baked.

Meanwhile, his career as a TV composer was taking off. Clausen worked on series including Wizards and Warriors, Fame and Partners in Crime before landing a full-time gig as composer and music director on Moonlighting, working on all five of its seasons. He later worked on the Jon Lovitz-led toon series The Critics, the Bette Midler sitcom Bette and on all episodes of NBC’s sitcom ALF, also penning the theme song for the latter.

But of course, that’s all secondary to Clausen’s crown jewel.

The Simpsons used a 35-piece orchestra, which Clausen conducted, enabling the wide variety of musical styles required by the show. The score was recorded weekly for each episode. He began composing for The Simpsons in 1990, early in its second season, and remained with the juggernaut series though Season 28 in 2017, when he was fired from the show.

“We tremendously value Alf Clausen’s contributions to The Simpsons, and he will continue to have an ongoing role in the show,” the show’s producers said in a statement to Deadline at the time. “We remain committed to the finest in music for The Simpsons, absolutely including orchestral. This is the part where we would make a joke, but neither Alf’s work nor the music of The Simpsons is treated as anything but seriously by us.”

Clausen didn’t find it funny. Nearly two years after his dismissal, he sued Disney and Fox for age discrimination. claiming the originally stated reason for his exit — “taking the music in a different direction” — was “false.” Instead, he alleged, his “unlawful termination was due to perceived disability and age.”

The legal battle lasted for nearly 2½ years, until Clausen’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the case, which had gone to appeal a year after it was filed. “It was pretty evident that we weren’t going to prevail, and defense counsel reached out to suggest that we should resolve to not risk being forced to pay case and attorney fees,” Clausen’s primary lawyer Ebby Bakhtiar said in a statement then.

But his run with The Simpsons is the stuff of legend. He wrote music for revered songs from the series as “Baby on Board” and “Who Needs the Kwik-E-Mart” and those in the Season 4 episode “A Streetcar Named Marge.” Clausen also produced a number of Simpsons-related albums including Songs in the Key of Springfield and The Yellow Album.

During his career, Clausen composed music for big bands led by Buddy Rich, Ray Charles, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton and others. His credits also include the Alf Clausen Jazz Orchestra’s 2005 album Swing Can Really Hang You Up The Most.

Composer

Time Walkers

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Pre-production

 

Level Seven

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Pre-production

 

Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, and Yeardley Smith in The Simpsons (1989)

The Simpsons

8.6

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Composer

1990–2017

596 episodes

 

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2014

 

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2011

 

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2006

 

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1986–2004

97 episodes

 

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6.5

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2000–2001

18 episodes

 

The Critic (1994)

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1994–2001

32 episodes

 

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1999

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1998

 

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1990

 

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1989–1990

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1989

 

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1985–1989

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1988

 

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1988

 

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1988

 

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1988

 

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1987

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1986–1987

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1986

 

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1986

 

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1985–1986

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6.3

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1984

1 episode

 

Debbie Allen, Lee Curreri, Cynthia Gibb, Erica Gimpel, Bill Hufsey, Carlo Imperato, Valerie Landsburg, and Gene Anthony Ray in Fame (1982)

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7.1

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1984

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1983

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1981

 

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1976

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Music Department

Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, and Yeardley Smith in The Simpsons (1989)

The Simpsons

8.6

TV Series

additional music bycomposer emeritusorchestrator ...

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7.4

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1986–2004

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composer: theme "Itchy and Scratchy"

2001

 

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6.6

orchestrator

1998

 

The Critic (1994)

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7.8

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conductororchestrator (uncredited)

1994–1995

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Spacecats (1991)

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6.9

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composer: theme song

1991

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6.9

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1991

 

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7.6

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music producer: theme song

1989–1990

65 episodes

 

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7.6

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conductor

1985–1989

60 episodes

 

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7.6

orchestrator

1988

 

Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks in Dragnet (1987)

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6.0

composer: additional musicorchestrator (as Alf Clauson)

1987

 

Robert Carradine and Billy Dee Williams in Number One with a Bullet (1987)

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4.8

orchestrations

1987

 

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7.8

orchestrator

1986

 

Danny DeVito and Joe Piscopo in Wise Guys (1986)

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orchestrator

1986

 

Robert Wagner in Lime Street (1985)

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6.1

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composer: additional music

1985–1986

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Mirrors (1985)

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6.0

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orchestrator

1985

 

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5.9

orchestrator (as Alf Claussen)

1985

 

Anthony Michael Hall, Kelly LeBrock, and Ilan Mitchell-Smith in Weird Science (1985)

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6.6

composer: additional musicorchestrator

1985

 

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6.4

orchestrator

1985

 

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Lots of Luck

5.6

TV Movie

orchestrator

1985

 

Micki + Maude (1984)

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6.0

additional orchestrator

1984

 

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6.3

TV Series

composer: additional music (uncredited)

1984

1 episode

 

Lance Guest in The Last Starfighter (1984)

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6.7

orchestrator (uncredited)

1984

 

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5.5

orchestrator

1984

 

Splash (1984)

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6.3

additional orchestrator

1984

 

Mr. Mom (1983)

Mr. Mom

6.6

orchestrator (uncredited)

1983

 

Miss All-American Beauty (1982)

Miss All-American Beauty

5.1

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composer: additional music (uncredited)

1982

 

Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)

Airplane II: The Sequel

6.2

composer: additional music (uncredited)

1982

 

The Beastmaster (1982)

The Beastmaster

6.2

orchestrator

1982

 

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Forced Vengeance

5.5

orchestrator

1982

 

This Is Kate Bennett... (1982)

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4.5

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composer: additional music (uncredited)

1982

 

Fast-Walking (1982)

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6.4

orchestrator (uncredited)

1982

 

Omnibus (1980)

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7.2

TV Series

music arranger

1980

 

Ron Ely in Face the Music (1980)

Face the Music

7.8

TV Series

music arranger

1980–1981

 

1941 (1979)

1941

5.8

music copyist (uncredited)

1979

 

The Mary Tyler Moore Hour (1979)

The Mary Tyler Moore Hour

6.1

TV Series

music director

1979

11 episodes

 

Donny Osmond and Marie Osmond in Donny and Marie (1975)

Donny and Marie

6.2

TV Series

music arranged & conducted byconductormusic arranged and conducted by

1977

3 episodes

 

Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway in Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Three Days of the Condor

7.4

music copyist (uncredited)

1975

 

The Eiger Sanction (1975)

The Eiger Sanction

6.4

music copyist (uncredited)

1975

 

Bea Arthur in Maude (1972)

Maude

7.3

TV Series

orchestrations

1975

1 episode

 

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

7.6

music copyist (uncredited)

1974

 

John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Jan-Michael Vincent, Antonio Aguilar, Bruce Cabot, Roman Gabriel, Big John Hamilton, Ben Johnson, Lee Meriwether, Melissa Newman, and Merlin Olsen in The Undefeated (1969)

The Undefeated

6.6

music copyist (uncredited)

1969

 

Thanks

Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd in Memories of Moonlighting (2006)

Memories of Moonlighting

7.9

Video

special thanks

2006

 

Soundtrack

Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, and Yeardley Smith in The Simpsons (1989)

The Simpsons

8.6

TV Series

music: "The Hood Internet Mashup"music: "They'll Never Stop the Simpsons"music: "Everyone Loves Ned Flanders" ...

1991–2025

121 episodes

 

Morning Joe Weekend

TV Series

writer: "Amendment to Be"

2025

1 episode

 

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Morning Joe

4.1

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writer: "Skinner's Sense of Snow"

2021

1 episode

 

Diminishing Returns (2016)

Diminishing Returns

3.5

Podcast Series

writer: "Dr. Zaius"

2018–2019

2 episodes

 

SparkShorts (2018)

SparkShorts

7.7

TV Mini Series

writer: "Simpsons Theme"

2019

1 episode

 

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Too Young to Die

7.0

TV Series

writer: "Dr. Zaius"

2015

1 episode

 

Bill Weisbach in Baby Einstein: Baby Neptune Discovering Water (2003)

Scrat's Continental Crack-Up

7.5

Short

writer: "We Wuille, We Willie Rocket!"

2010

 

Doug Walker in Nostalgia Critic (2007)

Nostalgia Critic

7.5

TV Series

music: "Alf Theme" (uncredited)

2009

1 episode

 

Alyssa Milano, Holly Marie Combs, and Shannen Doherty in Charmed (1998)

Charmed

7.2

TV Series

writer: "Count On Me (Somebody)"

2003

1 episode

 

Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997)

Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

6.3

arranger: "Blue Danube Waltz"

1997

 

The Critic (1994)

The Critic

7.8

TV Series

music: "Lighter Than Air"music: "Bogart the Roach" (uncredited)

1994–1995

2 episodes

 

Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man (1994)

Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man

7.7

TV Series

music: "Ha Ha"

1994

1 episode

 

Jennifer Connelly and Frank Whaley in Career Opportunities (1991)

Career Opportunities

5.8

arranger: "Nel blu di pinto di blu"

1991

 

Paul Fusco and Mihaly 'Michu' Meszaros in ALF (1986)

ALF

7.4

TV Series

music: "You're the one who's out of this world"

1986

1 episode

 

Carmen Osbahr in Los Cuentos de Cri Cri (1984)

Los Cuentos de Cri Cri

TV Movie

arranger: "Marcha de las Letras", "La Muñeca Fea"

1984

 

Self

The Interviews: An Oral History of Television (1997)

The Interviews: An Oral History of Television

7.5

TV Series

Self

2015

1 episode

 

The Simpsons: Access All Areas

4.6

TV Movie

Self

2010

 

Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd in Memories of Moonlighting (2006)

Memories of Moonlighting

7.9

Video

Self

2006

 

'The Simpsons': America's First Family

8.0

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Self

2000

 

The Simpsons Have Landed

TV Special

Self

1996