Hey Jim, just wondering why you think it's a crappy song. The changes are actually more jazz-informed than many standards & the melody's, well, it's a melody from a Broadway show. Nothing memorable, but worse have joined the mainstream. That's the esteemable Jule Styne's part of the song.
That leaves the lyrics (by the aforementioned schlockmeister Bob Merrill, and they are indeed crap. But in an instrumental version, they're not a factor, right?
All in all, I don't think it's a great song, or even necessarily a good one. But it's never aroused my ire the way it has yours unless there's lyrics attached. And I do think it works better as jazz in a medium swing tempo. As a ballad, it gets kind of syurpy if unless you're able to completely able to get the resdue of the lyrics out of your mind, and I'm not that strong.
Yet.