"Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini" is a novelty song telling the story of a shy girl wearing a revealing polkadot bikini at the beach. It was written by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss and first released in June 1960 by Brian Hyland with orchestra conducted by John Dixon.

Hyland's version hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on August 8, 1960 and also made the top 10 in other countries, including #8 on the UK Singles Chart. It also reached #1 in New Zealand.

The story told through the three verses of the song is as follows: (1) the young lady is too afraid to leave the locker where she has changed into her bikini; (2) she has made it to the beach but sits on the sand wrapped in a blanket; and (3) she has finally gone into the ocean, but is too afraid to come out, and stays immersed in the water – despite the fact that she's "turning blue" – to hide herself from view.

Trudy Packer recited the phrases "...two, three, four / Tell the people what she wore", heard at the end of each verse before the chorus; and "Stick around, we'll tell you more", heard after the first chorus and before the start of the second verse.

At a time when bikini bathing suits were still seen as too risqué to be mainstream, the song prompted a sudden take off in bikini sales and is credited as being one of the earliest contributors to the acceptance of the bikini in society. The early 1960s saw a slew of surf movies and other film and television productions that rapidly built on the song's momentum.

In September 2006, the song's co-writer Paul Vance read his own mistaken obituary. The obituary was of another man, Paul Van Valkenburgh, who claimed to have written the song under the name Paul Vance. The impostor explained his lack of royalty payments for the song by claiming that he had sold the rights as a teenager. Vance, the song's true co-author, has earned several million dollars from the song since 1960, describing it as "a money machine."

The song was featured in the 1961 Billy Wilder film comedy One, Two, Three – in a key scene, the character Otto (Horst Buchholz), suspected of being a spy, is being tortured by East German police playing the song to him repetitively, eventually with the record off-center to create a weird howling variation of pitch. The actual recording was re-released in 1962 to capitalize on the film's success, but it did not rechart.

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Wikipedia