[1] The original version was recorded on August 13, 1965 at Gold Star Studios in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.
[2] Two other songs were recorded during that session, those being "And I Love Her" and "More And More Amor"[2] In the United States, the song is closely associated with the long-running game show The Dating Game, for which it was played when the bachelor entered into the stage to ask questions to learn and choose which bachelorette had best suited the needs of that bachelor.
[3] Teresa Brewer, The Modernaires, Frankie Randall, and Soupy Sales were among the artists who quickly recorded vocal versions of "Spanish Flea" with Cissy Wechter's original lyrics.
[citation needed] Mel Blanc parodied the song as "The Flea" on the Jack Benny variety show in December 1966, during a "Si-Sy-Sue" skit along with his group 'The Tijuana Strings'.
The song was used by Mazda in TV commercials during the 1970's to advertise their GLC model, "Its a great little car" The tune has been featured in four episodes of The Simpsons: "The Otto Show" (with Homer singing the original lyrics), "Team Homer", "Natural Born Kissers", and "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday".
In the 1996 film Striptease, the song is played inside a laundromat while Erin Grant (Demi Moore) and her daughter Angela (Rumer Willis) take all the clothes out of the dryer machine.
In an episode of Supernatural, the song is played when a pair of demons call Crowley (the King of Hell) from a hunter's trap.
[17] In the 2023 HBO miniseries Love & Death in the episode "Encounters", it was performed by the character Pat on his trumpet at the dinner table.
The song is also used as the closing music for the soccer podcast Low Limit Futbol, hosted by Joe Uccello and Roberto Rojas.