"Spanish Flea" is a popular song written by Julius Wechter in the 1960s with lyrics by Cissy Wechter.
The song is best known from an instrumental version by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, released as a single and on their 1965 album Going Places, both of which were No.1 hits in America. The song featured Alpert's trumpet over a latin rhythm backing and was used as the "Bachelor’s Theme" on the long-running American television show The Dating Game. It was one of two Alpert songs in a 1966 animated cartoon by John Hubley, A Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Double Feature.
"Spanish Flea" was also covered by Trudy Pitts on her debut album Introducing the Fabulous Trudy Pitts (1967) and by the Doodletown Pipers on The Doodletown Pipers Sing-along '67 (1967). Julius Wechter himself, with his Baja Marimba Band, recorded the song on the 1971 album As Time Goes By.
The tune has been featured in four episodes of The Simpsons: "The Otto Show", "Team Homer", "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday", and "Natural Born Kissers".
In the fingerprint scene in Rosewood's home in Beverly Hills Cop II, Eddie Murphy (playing Axel Foley) and Judge Reinhold (playing Billy Rosewood) improvised the idea of humming the tune. When Taggart (John Ashton) asks what the tune is, Rosewood replies, "The Dating Game!"
In Perdita Durango, the two main characters happily groove to the song while abducting two teenagers.
In an episode of The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, Vic Reeves plays the song through a prosthetic arm.