The Overstuffed Story Behind Those Wild Bikinis

I constantly search for column topics that will appeal to the broadest variety of readers, and I’m certain this week’s subject – the bikini – fits the bill.

Well, every guy I talked to liked the idea anyway.

The official “birthday” of the bikini is generally said to be July 5, 1946. This makes the bikini 61 years old, the same as Dolly Parton, who probably still looks good in one, and George W. Bush, who probably does not.

Two-piece bathing costumes definitely existed prior to July of ’46, but apparently none ever dared go where the bikini went: below the bellybutton. The bellybutton of a tres belle jeune filles, to be precise, because the bikini was “invented” in France, and the first one was modeled by Micheline Bernardini, a nude dancer from a Paris casino. Hmmm. Can you imagine being way overdressed in a bikini compared to what you wear at work?

One of the bikini’s “inventors,” Jacques Heim, actually created a two-piece suit early in 1946. He called it the “Atome” for its small size. But a guy named Louis Reard split the Atome, refining it into an even smaller suit. Nuclear weapons tests were taking place at that time on Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific, inspiring the suit’s name. Reard said the bikini would generate a burst of excitement equal to The Bomb.

Men eagerly scrambled to see the first bikini up close, but not for the reasons you’re thinking. It was because the fabric featured an intriguing “newspaper” design. In fact, close-up photos of the suit clearly reveal portions of one of my early columns.

The bikini took a while to achieve popularity. As late as 1957, the news media was still dissing it. That year, Modern Girl magazine wrote, “It is inconceivable that any girl with tact and decency would ever wear such a thing.” And the famous etiquette maven Emily Post said the bikini “is for perfect figures only, and for the very young.”

But by then, the bikini was da bomb on the beach. In 1960, the famous ditty “Itsy Bitsy, Teenie Weenie, Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” was a big hit for a guy named Brian Hyland. Any deep-thinking columnist would pause here to make a profound observation about “Itsy Bitsy’s” permanent place in the nation’s cultural consciousness. Heck, it’s being used right now in a TV commercial for yogurt.

Of course, you know that I am not a deep-thinking columnist, and the main reason I bother mentioning Brian Hyland is to torture you with meaningless trivia about him: Hyland is a cousin, by marriage, to the late Louis Feinberg, who himself became a permanent part of the nation’s cultural consciousness, as “Larry” of the Three Stooges.

(Whaddya say, guy readers? Can a column get any better than this? Bikinis and The Stooges! Yesssss! All that’s left is to worm in some reference to beer!)

While I have yet to discover any evidence that the Three Stooges ever appeared on film with beer-drinking bikini-clad actresses, or wearing bikinis themselves, the bikini has clearly made its mark in the world of cinema. The classic “How to Stuff a Wild Bikini,” featuring Annette Funicello – the utterly dreamy personification of Emily Post’s ideal bikini-wearer – was only the beginning.

From those innocent days, we’ve advanced to highly sophisticated and intellectually challenging bikini-related entertainment for a new millennium. I speak, of course, of the Nickelodeon Channel’s “SpongeBob SquarePants,” set in an undersea community called Bikini Bottom.

You say SpongeBob is not remotely sophisticated or intellectually challenging? Okay then, YOU try answering this question posed by No. 5 son, age 6: “Daddy, SpongeBob lives in Bikini Bottom, but what happened to Bikini Top?”

My mind immediately wandered off in contemplation of lost bikini tops, but I still managed to respond to his question in a mature manner. I changed the channel to ESPN.

Later I tried Googling up some pictures of the real Bikini – the South Pacific atoll – to show No. 5 where SpongeBob might live. Unfortunately, I was inundated with pictures of wild bikinis. Most of them rather, um, overstuffed.

Imagine your wife catching you surfing the internet looking at pix of girls in skimpy bikinis, and then trying to convince her that you’re innocently researching a column topic.

Of course, in my case, this actually worked. But dude, it won’t in yours.

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TakefiveT5@yahoo.com