How the iconic theme song from Seinfeld nearly got dumped

The iconic music behind Seinfeld didn't win over everyone and it nearly got dumped. Photo / Supplied

It's one of the most recognisable theme songs of all time - but the music from Seinfeld that we all know and love was almost dumped at the last minute.

In an interview with Great Big Story, the man behind the show's unique sound, composer Jonathan Wolff, admitted network bosses originally hated what he'd come up with.

"Everybody loved the music - Jerry [Seinfeld] loved it, [writer and producer] Larry David loved it, everyone - except the network," he recalled.

"They said 'can we not afford real music? It's distracting, it's annoying'."

But, thanks to David's persistence, "the music stayed in the picture."

Wolff also pointed out something that even the most dedicated fans probably didn't know: the song was improvised for every single episode in the series, which ran from 1989-1998.

"The theme song was different for every episode," he revealed.

"I have no idea how many themes we did for Seinfeld. I knew each monologue was going to be different because [Jerry] tells different jokes, so it had to be adjustable."

It sounds like an arduous task, but as Wolff explains, it was actually very simple once he worked out Seinfeld's comedy style.

"I noticed that Jerry has a lyrical delivery to his jokes, and I put a clock on it ... and that became the tempo for the theme," he said.

"The bassline is so simple it can start and stop for his jokes, hold for laughs, and that way I could architect each piece of music for each monologue, Lego-style."

Despite Seinfeld's phenomenal success, Wolff admitted none of them had high hopes going in.

"When Seinfeld first started, none of us expected it to last."

Luckily - they were all proven very, very wrong.