Where Everybody Knows Your Name the perfect theme song for their upcoming NBC sitcom, "Cheers". Upon learning that "People Like Us" was legally bound to the musical Preppies, the Charles Brothers asked Portnoy and Hart Angelo to take a shot at composing a theme specifically for "Cheers". The song that resulted, "My Kind of People", was somewhat of a reworked version of "People Like Us". It was subsequently rejected. Portnoy and Hart Angelo then wrote and submitted two more potential themes for "Cheers". One of them, entitled "Another Day", contained a lyric line "There are times when it's fun to take the long way home"
Mike Portnoy Golden God Awards in April 20, 2011, he won the "Best Drummer Award" for his work with Avenged Sevenfold. In June 7, 2011, Portnoy posted on his Facebook that he had won "Drum!" magazine's "Drummer of the Year Award" and the "Metal Drummer Award". Portnoy won the "Virtuoso" award at the 2013 Progressive Music Awards. Portnoy played John Myung's bass when Dream Theater performed as the fictitious band Nightmare Cinema. Before live performances of "Trial of Tears", he would sometimes switch instruments with John Petrucci and play a fragment of "Eruption" by Van Halen. In Nightmare Cinema he got the