25 Surprising Facts You Didn’t Know About The Simpsons’ Emmy-Winning Composer Alf Clausen

Alf Clausen might not be a household name, but his music has been in your head for decades. The sly string runs under Sideshow Bob, the Broadway-sized numbers about monorails and burlesque houses, the emotional underscoring that made Springfield’s chaos feel cinematic — that was Alf. From Jamestown, North Dakota, to the world’s biggest animated family, Clausen’s career is a map of television’s golden sound. Here are 25 things you didn’t know about him, each one another note in a life scored to perfection.

  1. Alf was born in Minneapolis on March 28, 1941, but grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota.
  2. Henry Mancini’s Sounds and Scores was the book that inspired him to pursue composing.
  3. He started on French horn in seventh grade, sang in choir, and later picked up bass guitar.
  4. He originally studied mechanical engineering before switching to music theory at North Dakota State.
  5. He took a Berklee correspondence course in jazz and big band writing while still in Fargo.
  6. He was the first French horn player to attend Berklee when he enrolled in the ’60s.
  7. His playing appears on Berklee’s Jazz in the Classroom albums.
  8. After graduating in 1966, he taught at Berklee for a year before heading west.
  9. In Los Angeles, he ghostwrote jingles, arranged charts, and even copied the music for The Partridge Family theme.
  10. Donny & Marie hired him as a score writer after an emergency chart; he soon became their full music director.
  11. For years, he flew weekly from LA to Utah to record the show’s score.
  12. He scored 63 of the 65 episodes of Moonlighting — including the black-and-white dream episode and Atomic Shakespeare.
  13. He composed for ALF, weaving quirky music around the show’s puppet star.
  14. His orchestration work included films like The Beastmaster, Splash, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and The Naked Gun.
  15. He joined The Simpsons in 1990, after Matt Groening told him the show should be scored like a drama, not a cartoon.
  16. He once wrote 57 musical cues in a single week for the series.
  17. His motto: “I can make you feel five ways in thirteen seconds.”
  18. Clausen avoided strict character themes, instead giving each episode its own “mini-movie” score.
  19. The one exception: Mr. Burns and Sideshow Bob got their own recurring motifs.
  20. He always used a full 35-piece orchestra — a rarity for TV.
  21. He won back-to-back Emmys for The Simpsons songs “We Put the Spring in Springfield” and “You’re Checkin’ In.”
  22. He was nominated for more Emmy Awards than any other musician — 30 in total.
  23. He won five Annie Awards for The Simpsons episodes across a decade.
  24. His work lives on in three soundtrack albums: Songs in the Key of Springfield (1997), Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons (1999), and The Simpsons: Testify (2007).
  25. In 2011, ASCAP gave him the Golden Note Award, with Paul Williams praising his “wonderfully happy music.”

Alf Clausen’s career is a reminder that music on television can be as inventive, powerful, and lasting as anything in concert halls or cinemas. His scores didn’t just accompany jokes — they elevated them, turned satire into spectacle, and made cartoon emotions feel deeply real. In Springfield and beyond, his sound is timeless, proof that even in a world of quick gags, the right melody lingers forever.