If you're as old as me...

...you probably remember the TV show "Sing Along With Mitch." The Mitch was Mitch Miller, and he died on Saturday at age 99. We were avid viewers in our house, following the bouncing ball when we weren't watching Ed Sullivan, "Bonanza," or Jackie Gleason. Apparently, though, the show wasn't universally popular. In Miller's obit in the Times today, it says:

The ratings were good, but the critics were mostly unimpressed. Brooks Atkinson, writing in The New York Times, suggested in 1962 that “Sing Along With Mitch” might best be viewed with the sound turned off.

Even at the singalongs’ height, many Americans considered them hopelessly corny. That sense only intensified as a younger generation came of age in the 1960s and musical tastes changed. There were news reports that shopping malls had begun piping Mitch Miller music on their sound systems as a way to discourage teenagers from congregating. Years later, in 1993, when David Koresh and members of his Branch Davidian cult were holed up in their compound in Waco, Tex., F.B.I. agents tried to flush them out by blasting “Sing Along With Mitch” Christmas carols.