Get the latest gossip

Alf Clausen, Emmy-Winning Composer for ‘The Simpsons,’ Dies at 84

Alf Clausen, the Emmy-winning composer whose music provided essential accompaniment for the animated antics of 'The Simpsons' for 27 years, has died.

Clausen, who also scored TV series including Moonlighting and Alf(“no relation,” he used to joke) was nominated for 30 Emmy Awards, 21 of them for The Simpsons, winning twice. While Danny Elfman wrote the show’s theme song, Clausen joined the Fox animated series created by Matt Groening in 1990 and provided essentially all of its music until 2017, composing nearly 600 scores and conducting the 35-piece orchestra that played it in the studio. It was Holdridge who first got the composing job on Moonlighting, the late-’80s ABC rom-com detective series starring Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd, but he handed the gig off to Clausen, who would get six Emmy nominations for his music on it.

Get the Android app