1990 Bombalurina: Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

Growing up in the seventies and eighties, television was a rather more staid affair than it is now. In those pre-VCR years it was still the main source of media based information and entertainment and, as such, it commanded a certain respect from all who participated in its delivery; the Queen's English was spoken, suits were worn and regional accents were rare in all programming from the news to children's programmes.

Timmy Mallet was one of the new breed of hyperactive children's presenter that emerged during the eighties, constantly hyperventilating on his own enthusiasm and punctuating his every announcement with some physical action that usually involved a large, inflatable mallet. And with his popularity at a high in 1990 via his morning 'Wacaday' show, a crossover single was as inevitable as pain following a gunshot wound.

“Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini' is a cover of Bryan Hyland's 1960 original that celebrated the new bikini craze with a harmless slice of postcard humour. To try and contemporise, Mallet and his gang run it through a sequencer and tart it up with some dance ad-lib ("go on girl - ah yeah!") shapes that, when taken with the promotional video, hammer out all the wink by mistaking sexy for sleaze - Mallet is cast as a binocular toting peeping Tom trying to catch a glimpse of a pouting and worryingly young looking girl coyly hiding up parts of her body the titular bikini didn't cover while what look like a porn stars on a busman's holiday cavort around her. Annette Mills would not be so much spinning in her grave as drilling her way out through the bottom of it.

Surprisingly, for a man who made a career out of loud and obnoxious, Mallet handles the vocal remarkably faithfully to Hyland's own and his reserve lets out any fizz the music might have generated. Which wouldn't have been much - despite its best efforts at knees-up schoolyard anarchy, 'Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny' is not in the slightest bit sexy. Or fun. Or wanted really. Except by the sort of person who has a 'You don't have to be crazy to work here' sign on their desk at work. And they're welcome to it.