The music "bumpers" on CHEERS

That's what we call those little musical passages that transition scenes -- bumpers. 

Here’s one of those Friday Questions that became an entire post because I have a special guest to answer it.

Dan Ball asks:

When I watch CHEERS, I always wonder how music was handled? I know Craig Safan scored the whole series (along with some great scores for THE LAST STARFIGHTER and REMO WILLIAMS), but would he actually score each episode or record a bunch of cues at one recording session per season that the director/editor could whip out in the editing room? Was it actually the director and editor who chose those cues? You've probably had to sit in this music chair plenty times in the past, so what's your strategy for picking the best ear candy for us, the audience? Are you more/less demanding in your scoring tastes because of your background in radio?

I didn't select the music cues.  For the shows I ran I had our line producer handle that.  Nor was I involved in the music on CHEERS.   So I personally don’t know the answer to Dan's question, but I figured why not go to the source? Craig Safan was nice enough to provide the answer.

You’re both right! I would score around half of each season’s episodes specifically for individual episodes. Usually these were recorded in groups of three episodes per session as there were union minimums and only one episode’s worth of music wouldn’t fill up that minimum amount of the musicians’ time. But I didn’t score each and every episode… I also recorded a “library” of musical cues in the “Cheers” style at the beginning of each season. Then that library was used for the shows that weren’t individually scored. Of course any new music I’d write for shows during the season would get added to that library so it would become quite extensive and after so many seasons… well you get the idea. It wasn’t the director or producer or editor who would choose the library music cues… it was the music editor. That would be Chips Swanson who was the music editor during the entire run of “Cheers”.

Thank you so much, Craig. And just know I’d be happy to return the favor. If you ever want me to conduct a session for you sometime, just say the word. But seriously, how cool that actual artists give their time to contribute inside info to this blog?

from By Ken Levine