George Costanza’s Answering Machine Jingle Was a Hit Song in the ‘80s
In addition to the nine years of constant synthesized slap bass, one of the most memorable musical moments from Seinfeld was, of course, George’s answering machine message. Who can forget how he gratingly croons, “Believe it or not, George isn’t at home, please leave a message at the beep…”
Younger fans may not be aware that this particular earworm wasn’t an original composition for the show; the melody belongs to the theme song for the ‘80s superhero series The Greatest American Hero. Of course, the original lyrics weren’t about George Costanza’s inability to answer his phone.
It was composed by Mike Post (with lyrics by Stephen Geyer), the same guy who gave us old school theme song bangers like “Magnum P.I.” and “Theme From L.A. Law.” While people rarely tend to listen to theme songs outside of their TV watching time, “Theme from The Greatest American Hero (Believe It or Not),” which was sung by a guy named Joey Scarbury, actually became a bona fide hit at the time. It actually reached the number two spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1981.
The song even got its own music video, seemingly filmed inside a smoke-filled suburban garage.
Incidentally, Scarbury later said in an interview that he wasn’t a fan of Seinfeld, and seemingly wasn’t thrilled that he never got paid for it since they re-recorded his voice. He was pleased to get a paycheck for the song’s use in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, however.
When a Seinfeld soundtrack was released in 2021, the show’s composer, Jonathan Wolff, felt the need to clarify in interviews that the final track on the album, “Believe it or Not (George’s Answering Machine),” wasn’t totally his. “Just to clarify, that is the one piece of music on the album that I did not create!” Wolff told Forbes at the time. “That’s the theme song for The Greatest American Hero. And it’s a wonderful song.”
But the karaoke-esque instrumental version heard on Seinfeld was his creation. He also had to resort to some creative production techniques in order to fix the finished recording because Jason Alexander’s singing was too good. While George isn’t a musician, Alexander is a seasoned Broadway performer and has proven that he can even make songs about greasy slabs of reheated beef sound fun!
“After Jason left,” Wolff continued, “it was suggested, ‘Is there anything we can do to make the sound worse?’ And I said, ‘Watch this!’ And I detuned my track. I know it was evil to do that to Jason.”
Wolff “sabotaging” Alexander made total sense for the scene. In the episode, “The Susie,” the answering machine message is clearly supposed to be as annoying as possible, further vexing George’s girlfriend, who he’s avoiding contact with because she wants to break up with him.
Sadly, the track from the recent Seinfeld album didn’t end up topping the Billboard charts like the original.
