Cheers decadent old-money WASPs," but, to meet producers' demands, they rewrote the lyrics to be about "likeable losers" in a Boston bar. The show's producers rejected this song, as well. After they read the script of the series pilot, they created another song "Another Day". When Portnoy and Hart Angelo heard that NBC had commissioned thirteen episodes, they created an official theme song "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" and rewrote the lyrics. On syndicated airings of "Cheers", the theme song was shortened to make room for commercials. "Cheers" was critically acclaimed in its first season, though it landed a disappointing 74th
Michael Portnoy of Lip", were antic and unpredictable, and characterized by dense language play, song and movement fragments and rapid transformations of character. In the mid 1990s, Portnoy regularly performed in venues such as Surf Reality and Luna Lounge's weekly show "Eating It", the epicenter of New York's alternative comedy scene. His wild and abstract theatrical performances, which occasionally interrupted and challenged other comedians on stage, prompted "Time Out New York" to describe him as "the bad boy of comedy", and the "New York Post" to dub him "the next Andy Kaufman". At the same time, Portnoy started working as a dancer