Background

In the stage version, the song is performed at the beginning of Act 2. In the 1948 original Broadway production, Lorenzo Fuller (playing Paul) and Eddie Sledge and Fred Davis (playing the specialty dancers) sang it, leading the full company. In the 1953 MGM Hollywood film version, the song was moved to an earlier part of the story. Ann Miller (playing Lois Lane, Fred's new girlfriend, who is also cast as Bianca) performed it. The song does not help move the story forward in either the stage or film versions. In the stage version, the song shows the cast of The Taming of the Shrew taking a break during intermission. In the film version, it highlights Lois's fun-loving and adventurous personality and allows Ann Miller to display her tap dancing skills. The line "According to the Kinsey report" from the original stage production was changed to "According to the latest report" in the film version. The song has also been performed by many other artists.

Notable recordings

• Ella Fitzgerald recorded the song on her 1956 album Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book and on her 1960 album Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife.
• Petula Clark recorded the song on her 1959 album Petula Clark in Hollywood.
• Mel Tormé included the song on his 1960 album Mel Tormé Swings Shubert Alley.
• Erasure included the song on the Red Hot + Blue compilation (album and video versions) in 1990.
• Stacey Kent recorded the song on her 2003 album The Boy Next Door.
• Anthony Strong included the song on his 2013 album Stepping Out.
• Holly Cole recorded the song on her 2013 album Shade.

In popular culture

• On February 16, 1964, Mitzi Gaynor sang the song on The Ed Sullivan Show. The show was broadcast live from the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach, between the two sets by The Beatles during their second appearance on the show.
• This song was used in a 2003 Adidas commercial.
• The song became popular again in 2004 because of two films released that year. The first was the Porter biopic De-Lovely, and the second was the movie Kinsey, which used the tune because Porter mentioned the Kinsey report on American sexual attitudes in the song's bridge.
• This song is mentioned in the title song of the 2008 musical In the Heights by Usnavi.
• In 2013, for Verve Remixed: The First Ladies, RAC (DJ) created a relaxed version of Ella Fitzgerald's performance of the song.
• In 2015, Katie Derham danced the Charleston to "Too Darn Hot" on the thirteenth series of Strictly Come Dancing with her professional dancing partner Anton Du Beke.
• The song is featured in the opening scene of the 2024 film Apartment 7A, a prequel to the 1968 film Rosemary's Baby.
• Part of the song is played in the film Kinsey to show how important Alfred Kinsey's 1948 book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male was to popular culture.