Mitch Miller Has Died (Aged 99)

Cafe Society
1

As per this article, Mitch Miller has died.

As a little kid, I can remember his show where the lyrics of songs were scrolled on the screen with a bouncing ball above the text - hence the phrase “follow the bouncing ball” came into common usage. Think primitive karaoke.

He had a chorus of male singers (with the occasional female guest) singing the songs as the viewing audience joined in at home.

My mother loved that show and would sing along to every tune - much to the embarrassment of us kids.

I did smile at the daughter’s explanation of cause of death - “he died of just old age”. End of the bouncing ball.

2

Good Lord! I thought he died back in the 70s.

3

wow! even people who never saw the show know who he is and the phrase “follow the bouncing ball”. it even was used in a harry potter movie.

i hope he was able to follow the bouncing ball of light to musician heaven.

4

I heard that! The news is that he was still alive!

5

. . .at age 99. I remember this guy from radio and TV back in the day. “Sing Along With Mitch” was all the rage.

6

OMG. I haven’t thought about him in years, but if I had, I would have thought he had already died.

My mom died in 1971 and I remember her being a big fan back before she got sick, which would have been prior to 1970. That’s forty years ago and I guess he wasn’t exactly a spring chicken then (59).

7

I didn’t see the other thread the first time through, so feel free to close this one. :smack:

8

There’s another thread? :smack::smack:

9

The bouncing ball actually goes back to 1925, when the Fleischer Brothers starting using it in their Song Car-Toons (cite).

10

I remember my parents’ having one or two of his LPs in their collection. Each LP had a bound-in booklet of lyric sheets, perforated so that they could be removed and shared with guests at sing-along parties. The mere thought of that kind of party always made me roll my eyes, so I was relieved to note that all pages were still intact in my parents’ copies.

Also, from the article:

Uh, no. I hear “Bismillah” and if memory serves the (non-perforated) lyrics printed in Queen’s A Night at the Opera LP rendered it as such. When I was in journalism school they taught us to fact-check our articles. This reporter should be ashamed for not spending thirty seconds with google to disprove her own mondegreen.

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Mod note: there were two threads on this, similar titles, so I’ve merged them.

12

You could have at least removed one of the bouncing balls. The two of them are making this thread hell to read.

My mother loved the show. If it wasn’t the very first thing I ever saw on television, it was pretty close to it.

13

I also thought he was long dead, because one never heard anything about him.

I was never into him, since he was an avowed enemy of rock music. My parents, who were both teenagers in the '50s, detested him immensely.

14

The lady next door to us (my best friend’s mother) would never miss his show. On warm summer evenings she’d have all the windows open, and the entire neighborhood would sing along.

I also thought he had died in the 70s.

15

Which apparently means “In the name of Allah” or “By the grace of God” or some such. It makes a bit more sense than “Mitch Miller” in context.

I used to wonder why they were invoking Miss Miller, best known for being a frequent audience member at TV show tapings.

16

We had a bunch of his LPs, and our family used to sing along with them all the time. Never had any parties, though.

17

I own the “Sing Along with Mitch” Christmas CD and play it every Christmas. Had to special order it, but its the album I grew up hearing while I decorated the tree.

18

Boy, does that name bring back some childhood memories.

19

Nobody of my generation can hear “The Stars and Stripes Forever” without that web-footed friends lyric going through their heads. I can only be grateful that he chose a fairly lousy (IMO) tune to ruin.

I think he did a good thing by perpetuating old American songs, although the Sing Along group was hopelessly bland.

As an A&R guy, I don’t much mind that he disliked rock and roll; there were plenty around to pick up the slack. And he did discover Aretha Franklin.

20

I have similar memories of that album as a child. If I recall, it came with multiple copies of the lyrics so everyone could sing along. They ran out of space and didn’t include the words to “The Christmas Song” with the note that they thought everyone knew the words to that. To my 8-year-old mind, I thought “Rudolph” would have been the song everyone knew.