Singalong in a Ditch

(Props to Monty)

Or
Kaput goes the King of Karaoke
(Kudos for Monty)

Or
Playing out the String Along with Mitch
Mitch Miller, the music producer who dismissed The Beatles as the hula hoop of music, has died at the age of 99. Going farther in the music industry than any classically trained oboist has a right to, Miller helped launch the careers of Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Johnny Mathis, Doris Day, Patti Page and Frankie Laine by convincing them to eschew artistic quality for pop tripe that would sell, like Clooney’s Come On-a My House. He also tried to ruin Frank Sinatra’s career through material like Bim Bam Baby and Mama Will Bark, a duet in dog mimicry with TV’s Dagmar. Miller also created techniques to overcome trite lyrics and bad vocals, like overdubbing and a sonic halo. Later the freakishly goateed maestro orchestrated mass mind control experiments on his television program Sing Along with Mitch, looking like one of Satan’s minions and imploring Americans to follow the bouncing ball and perform the American songbook while subliminal messages commanded them to vote for Richard Nixon and to drink more ovaltine. The karaoke phenomenon of the 1990s sought to replicate Miller’s subliminal control on a local level, but only managed to convince the susceptible to buy tickets to Pauly Shore movies. Miller himself enjoyed a bit of a comeback in the 1980s, as shopping malls began playing his hits to discourage loitering mallrats, and had a last hurrah in 1993, when the FBI tried to drive out David Koresh’s Branch Dividian cult by blasting “Sing Along With Mitch” Christmas carols on loudspeakers. h