Today’s Rare Recent Arrival 

For the theme song to TV’s massive hit comedy Cheers, the chorus features six of Gary Portnoy's vocals, recorded one on top of the other to create the "group sound" of the hook. It was also decided, by the show’s producers Glen and Les Charles, to maintain the simple feel of Gary’s demo in the television version of the song by keeping the number of instruments to a minimum. The finalized version of the Cheers theme song was recorded on August 13, 1982, at Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles, California.

Shortly after the premiere of Cheers, Portnoy went back into the studio to record a longer version of the song that made the U.S. and British pop charts.

The song received an Emmy Award nomination in 1983 for Outstanding Achievement in Music and Lyrics. In a 2011 Readers Poll in Rolling Stone, WHERE EVERYONE KNOWS YOUR NAME was voted the best television theme of all time.  Two years later, the editors of TV Guide named the song the greatest TV theme of all time.

Some trivia 

The original opening verse:

Singin' the blues when the Red Sox lose,
it's a crisis in your life.
On the run 'cause all your girlfriends
wanna be your wife.
And the laundry ticket's in the wash.

was changed to:

Makin' your way in the world today
takes everything you've got.
Takin' a break from all your worries
sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?

WHERE EVERYONE KNOWS YOUR NAME was Gary Portnoy’s debut single. A year later, he composed and performed EVERY TIME I TURN AROUND, the opening theme to TV’s Punky Brewster, a sit-com centered on an abandoned second grader fending for herself in a deserted Chicago apartment.