"Kinky Boots" is a song written by Herbert Kretzmer and David Lee for an episode of the television programme That Was The Week That Was in 1963, and subsequently recorded in 1964 by Patrick Macnee and Honor Blackman, stars of another television series, The Avengers.

The song was commissioned by Ned Sherrin for the satirical television series That Was the Week That Was and used in a sequence featuring the titular footwear, which were then fashionable, and performed by Millicent Martin on the show's November 2 1963 episode. The recording by Macnee and Blackman was released by Decca in February 1964.

The song was not initially a hit, but one re-release of 1990 reached the top ten of the British Singles Chart in December of that year, after the song was promoted by BBC Radio One DJ Simon Mayo.^[1]

The single peaked at No.5 (on Deram records label KINKY 1) and remained on the chart for seven weeks.^[2] Prior to this, in 1977, it was placed at No.22 in the "Bottom 30" of Kenny Everett's World's Worst Wireless Show.^[3] The song is quite short: just one minute and thirty seven seconds long.

This article contains too many or overly lengthy quotations. (September 2023)

Upon the 1990 re-release, Jon Wilde from Melody Maker recalled that "When first released in 1964, this record caused questions to be raised in the Commons and a national controversy was only averted when PM Harold Wilson went on record as saying that he dreamed nightly about Honor "Cathy Gale" Blackman's sexy leather outfits and slick judo moves in The Avengers, along with the normal things like goldfish and skeletons. An inspired reissue then for this magnificent high camp curiosity. Few things in life charm quite like Patrick "John Steed" MacNee's dandified enthusiasm for "frumpy little beat girls" and "sexy little schoolgirls". His matter-of-fact delivery of the line "Leather is so kinky" remains one of the great landmarks in pop history."^[4]