The musical opened on Broadway in 1947 (running for 727 performances), and in London's West End in 1948, and has had several regional revivals as well as being televised in 1956.

The creative team, composer Jule Styne, lyricist Sammy Cahn and writer Stephen Longstreet had worked in Hollywood, as had the producers Monte Proser and Joseph Kipness (who had also produced several short-lived Broadway shows) and actors Phil Silvers, who was known for his on-screen con-man persona, and Nanette Fabray.

The Shuberts, involved because the show was to play in one of their theaters, approved an increase in Abbott's percentage to include author's royalties.

The duos' dubious intentions are made clear as Floy pitches "snake-oil" schemes ("He Tried to Make a Dollar") including selling fake watches and diamond mines, and the shill Mr. Pontdue asks for two.

Floy gives the conned citizens their money back, but before he leaves tries to get the audience to buy one more item of "great worth..." The highlight of the original production was a long (7- to 10-minute) ensemble dance number ("The Bathing Beauty Ballet", to the song "On a Sunday by the Sea") at the beginning of the second act.

"[3] Amanda Vaill, in her biography of Robbins, describes this dance number: "The actors careen across the stage, in and out of a row of boardwalk bathhouses, slamming doors, falling, rolling, leaping to their feet, colliding with one another, in a masterpiece of intricately plotted chaos that bears all the marks of the developing Robbins style: wit, character, drama, and precision.

A television adaptation was broadcast live November 24, 1956, on NBC with Nanette Fabray and Joey Faye repeating their original roles, Hal March as Harrison Floy and Don Ameche as Papa Longstreet.

[11] Brooks Atkinson, theatre critic for The New York Times, wrote that it was a "very happy musical show in a very cheerful tradition."