You Can Leave Your Hat On

A striptease. Depending on the tastefulness of the scene and the point in a career, it can either make or destroy an actor or actress.

Because someone disrobing on camera has a tendency to do that. Can go all the way; use of Scenery Censor and other camera hiding techniques is optional; may be played for comedy or pure weapons-grade Fan Service.

In the days of VHS rentals, this could cause technical difficulties, as that small section of the tape would get an inordinate amount of wear.

The trope name comes from the 1972 song "(You Can) Leave Your Hat On" by Randy Newman. Sung by Joe Cocker in the movie 9½ Weeks, as well as covered by other singers. Made popular again by Tom Jones's version in The Full Monty. Made ridiculous by Troll 2.

Note that a striptease means just that, some element of sexual teasing, so this trope is not merely taking off clothes or having clothes removed. If an unwilling subject is forced to disrobe in a teasing manner, it can still be this trope, and for certain falls into Shameful Strip.

Has nothing to do with Please Keep Your Hat On or Never Bareheaded, despite being extremely similar in name.

Examples of You Can Leave Your Hat On include:

Females

Anime & Manga

• Mahou Sensei Negima has an interesting variation on this. The girls go with Negi to Konoka's temple complex, and they create a bunch of magical decoys to take the girls' place so no-one will notice their absence. The clones then decide to do a striptease act for some reason. Surprisingly, it hasn't caused too much trouble (at least not compared to the release of the really big demon in the meantime).
• Dominion Tank Police: In the first OVA, the Puma sisters perform a mirrored striptease together out of their Naughty Nurse Outfits to distract the police troops coming to apprehend them. It works: they even take everything off, down to their Godiva hair.
• Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt uses a striptease, complete with pole-dancing, as the Transformation Sequence when it goes normally.
• In one live-action adaptation of Maicching Machiko-sensei, Miss Machiko (Kaori Nakatani) catches a couple of boys (looking a little bit older than the teenagers they're supposed to be) looking at a naughty magazine outside. They tell her that they'd be better students if she did a striptease for them. So she agrees and practices at home, then at an assembly setting of a sizeable group of both boys and girls, she strips topless down to her panties and a boa. Two girls get so excited that they even ask her to strip again so they can join her. In another live-action adaptation, Miss Machiko competes with her lookalike in a talent contest, which ultimately becomes each one "accidentally" losing one piece of clothing after another.

Comic Books

• Barbarella
• Sin City has a character who is actually a stripper. In fact, she is sometimes depicted wearing nothing but a hat, invoking this trope to the T.
• Jack Faust has Promethea strip for him at the start of their sexual encounter/magic lesson.
• Omaha the Cat Dancer. The story is about a stripper and, well, actually involves striptease.
• Joker featured Harley Quinn doing a reverse striptease, coming out naked and then putting on her costume.
• Similar to the Joker example, Batman once had Selina seductively put on her Catwoman costume after a rooftop tryst with Bruce.
• Both Sara and Bob's characters end up stripping in an attempt to earn cash to continue the mission in Dave's game in Knights of the Dinner Table #201.
• Not surprisingly, it happens in Little Ego, during one of the heroin's many Erotic Dreams. While stranded in the desert, Ego's guide recommends she remove her clothing. As Ego is disrobing, the scenery changes around her and she finds herself performing a striptease on stage.

Films — Live-Action

• Metropolis (1927): in the era before the Hays Code, Robot Maria stripped down to pasties.
• The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) has a meeting in a strip club. The one performer shown is Nipple-and-Dimed, but still enough to make you wonder how it got a PG rating from the BBFC.
• 9½ Weeks, as aforementioned, has the song that became the trope's name.
• True Lies: Helen strips down to her bra and thong for someone she doesn't realize is her husband.
• Dogma features Salma Hayek bouncing around to "Candy Girl" in a mesmerizing scene.
• Gilda (1946) had the most famous movie striptease for years, from the anticipation that bombshell Rita Hayworth built in the scene, and the disappointment that she took hardly anything off in the end (necessary in the era of the Hays Code). Nightclub singer Gilda started what seemed a regular musical act, then in the middle turned it into an unexpected, improvised tease when she started slowly slipping off one of her long gloves, to the great surprise and delight of the in-movie audience (and of course real-life movie-goers too). After finishing singing, she removed the other glove and her necklace, leaving audiences on both sides of the silver screen wondering how far she was going. In-story asked for more, she was going to give it and asked for "help" with her dress' zipper, but was stopped. Gilda is one of the best known movie Femme Fatales.
• Lynda Carter recreated the tease in Rita Hayworth: the Love Goddess, and like with Hayworth, it was a disappointment to her fans (even if foregone because of the actress and copying the original, not to mention the limits of a TV broadcast) that she too ultimately took very little off.
• Patsy Kensit's character in Beltenebros (1991) did the same performance and more, undoing her very similar dress to finish bare-breasted in her panties and stockings.
• In Se lo fai sono guai (2001), Lucilla Diaz's character also wore a very similar dress, this time for what everyone at a club knew would be a striptease act. She didn't sing but went farther than the others, taking everything off.
• "Lady of Burlesque" (1943) was also from the era of the Hays Code. So while strippers were shown in the main setting of a burlesque hall, and they wore costumes a little provocative for cinema of the time (considered nothing today), they didn't do any real stripteases, and their bump-and-grinds were extremely tame. The movie was based on Gypsy Rose Lee's novel "The G-String Murders."
• Troll 2, which even used the trope naming song. And some corn.
• Watchmen, and in some circles the scene has been not-so-affectionately dubbed "the porn scene".
• Sophia Loren has a famous, great one in Vittorio De Sica's Ieri, oggi, domani (Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow).
• Striptease. It's not actually about a strip club, but about a fourth of the movie is spent watching one of the girls in the club — usually the main character — strip.
• The opening scene of Barb Wire.
• Les Chevaliers du ciel features a pilot doing a striptease down to her underwear atop a gorgeous Vought F4U corsair.
• The Man with the Golden Gun: The Bottom's Up Club is indeed a strip club, making 007's earlier remark coincidentally accurate. The waitress' breasts are covered by her Godiva Hair.
• Showgirls, of course.
• Jane Fonda stripping off her spacesuit in zero-gravity constitutes the entire opening credits sequence of the movie version of the aforementioned Barbarella. Pushing the limits of the original "approved" rating, she winds up completely nude with angles, armbras and credits mostly hiding her, and her nipples are clearly seen a few times.
• What's New, Pussycat? (1965, written by Woody Allen) has an earlier scene at a striptease bar, though hardly anything is shown. Paula Prentiss' character begins stripping in the shadows, and she was indeed filmed taking off more, but the rest was cut from the movie (with obvious disjointing).
• Woody Allen's What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966) showed more. It begins in a strip club, where one man remarks of the stripper, "I liked her better in The Sound of Music." During the end credits, Allen lounges on a couch and eats an apple, while a woman (China Lee) strips down to her underwear. As she seems to start unhooking one side of her stripper panties, he stops her, then turns to the camera and says, "I told her I'd get her in the picture... somewhere."
• In Coyote Ugly, Violet slowly strips for her boyfriend as part of an explanation of how she feels when she tries to perform on-stage.
• Takin' It Off and Takin' It All Off with Kitten Natividad are all about this trope.
• Party Plane is about stewardesses doubling as in-flight strippers, in a struggling airline's attempt to get more passengers.
• Any movie by Ed Hansen is this trope, really.
• Similarly, Mexican cinema with actresses Gloriella (Gloria Cárdenas Sandoval) and Rossy Mendoza was almost little more than stories no one noticed built around them stripteasing completely desnuda (as if that were a bad thing). Rosita Bouchot was 39 but no less impressive when stripteasing completely nude in "Pasaporte a la muerte" and "El cabaretero y sus golfas" (both released in 1988).
• In Amor Estranho Amor, Xuxa Meneghel's character is hired to do a striptease at a party, starting out in a giant teddy bear costume.
• In Hasta El Viento Tiene Miedo, Norma Lazareno's character (Kitty) does a strip for the other girls before seeing the ghost. The 2007 remake goes a bit further to topless nudity.
• Stripped to Kill: the scantily-clad women at Rock Bottom perform a huge array of professional striptease routines.
• Private Lessons: Sylvia Kristel's character strips for Philip, the young main protagonist.
• Sabato Italiano: Marina (Francesca Neri) is hired by a lot of younger boys to perform a striptease for them, but their mothers crash the show and stop her just as she undoes her bra, to the boys' obvious disappointment.
• In Flodder 2, Kees (Tatjana Simic) finds work at a nightclub, and for its Dutch-themed reopening, she does a topless striptease out of a traditional outfit.
• Plucking the Daisy, one of Brigitte Bardot's first movies, has her performing in an amateur strip contest to earn money to pay for a rare book she mistakenly sold. It's mostly tease, but the contestant just before her (in the uncensored version) strips fully nude.
• Another of Brigitte Bardot's movies, Viva Maria, has her and her companion inadvertently inventing striptease while performing in Mexico.
• The Night Porter has an infamous flashback scene of the female lead (an inmate in a Nazi camp) sensually singing Marlene Dietrich's Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte, showing a bare breast while wearing Opera Gloves and a Nazi cap.
• In the Canadian movie Le Party, Alexandra (Charlotte Laurier) performs a full strip for the prisoners in jail.
• In Doctor in Trouble, Dawn (Janet Mahoney) is introduced at dinner as going to "dance" for her fellow cruise ship passengers. It's immediately clear what she's doing, from the music, and how she removes her cloak and gloves. She strips down to her bra and panties, then as she's getting "help" with her bra, fitting the movie's rating and its nature as a comedy, it ends with them falling into the swimming pool.
• In Varsity Blues, the boys go to a strip club and are surprised to find out the performing stripper is none other than their Sex-Ed teacher, Miss Davis (Tonie Perensky).
• How to Beat the High Co$t of Living: Elaine (Jane Curtin) does an impromptu striptease to distract the crowd and security from the ongoing heist. A body double was used for the brief shot of bare breasts, perhaps also the slightly earlier view of Elaine pulling down her skirt.
• Delusions of Grandeur: Alice Sapritch's character performs a strip for one of the main protagonists after he mistakenly declares his love for her.
• The Nude Set has an interrupted strip by the main protagonist, Sophie (Agnes Laurent), a strip by a cancan dancer earlier in the movie, a strip dice act, and a few more.
• In Nashville, Gwen Welles' character fails to impress the male audience with her bad singing, so she's pressed into stripping fully nude.
• In One Night Only, Chantale Perron's character performs a striptease at the party.
• In Vive les femmes!, Viviane (Catherine Leprince) strips nude on top of the table at the New Year's dinner party.
• In Prunelle Blues, the eponymous Prunelle (Valerie Steffen) strips on stage at the very beginning of the movie.
• Escape to Athena (1979). The POWs put on a variety act for their German guards, the climax of which is a striptease by an interned female USO performer. While the Germans are busy leering over her performance (she doesn't have to show much, and in keeping with the PG rating she goes down only to her underwear), the Greek resistance sneaks up and takes them all prisoner.
• Sunset Strip (1993), as the name suggests, has many strip acts throughout.
• In The Playbirds (1978), Penny Spencer and Mary Millington's police characters separately strip completely nude to demonstrate qualifications for an undercover job.
• The highly fictionalized Blaze (1989) is about the famous stripper Blaze Starr, played by Lolita Davidovich. Naturally the movie has a few burlesque stripteases.
• Near the end of Loose Screws (aka Screwballs II), the four main characters rig a statue to release an "aphrodisiac" gas during a school assembly. Their plan works: the gas affects the sexy French teacher they want to score with, and she strips topless to just her panties and a garter belt as classic striptease music plays, to the delight and applause of both boy and girl students.
• Madhouse (1990): Kirstie Alley's character strips for her husband, and it's implied she took everything off while hiding behind a curtain (the movie is only PG-13), but then they're interrupted by visitors.
• Domino: Domino defuses a Mexican Standoff by offering the gangster boss a lapdance.
• The film adaptation of the musical Nine has the Movie Bonus Song "Take It All": as Luisa realises her marriage is falling apart, she does a number that's imagined as her performing on stage. She strips off everything as a way of showing Guido how he has taken everything from her, but since the movie is PG-13, she's shown only the back when she takes off her bra.
• Darling Lili: Lili's romantic rival Crepe Suzette is introduced performing a striptease as part of her act in a club. For added Visual Pun, she's wearing a Nice Hat that's one of the last things she removes. Lili's number "I'll Give You Three Guesses" is first performed as a cutesy song about Lili falling for Bill, but after she discovers he might be two-timing her with Suzette, her reprise is Hotter and Sexier with a striptease. Home video and careful pausing made it possible to see that Julie Andrew's bare breast and nipple are briefly visible as Lili steps off stage.
• S.O.B.: its Film Within a Film Night Wind satirizes Darling Lili, and Julie Andrew's character does a bizarre striptease to the tune of "Polly Wolly Doodle." Andrews deliberately appeared topless in that scene in an attempt to break with her stereotyped "good girl" image.
• Road House: when Wesley and his goons show up at the Double Deuce, Denise does a striptease down to just her panties. Almost like the trope, then she borrows someone's hat to cover her breasts. Since the DD isn't a strip club, Dalton drags her off the stage. "If you're gonna have a pet, keep it on a leash."
• Shandra: The Jungle Girl: Shandra goes hunting and winds up at a strip club. The audience is treated to an entire striptease, despite it having nothing to do with the plot.
• Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! is set in a strip club, showing several strip routines and a lap dance.
• Girl House: Kylie's first act in the house is a webcam striptease that manages to attract 100% of the online audience.
• The ABCs of Death: in the "H" segment, Frau Scheisse poses as burlesque dancer and performs a striptease to lure Bertie into her trap.
• The Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill: Meg loses a forfeit and has to perform a striptease for the three knights. She does not seem to object. Beth also does one when it is her turn to "perform."
• Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent: a drunk Ashley does a striptease for Kurt and Clayton, and as she's unhooking her bra, she's interrupted by Sam's return. He's not pleased to see Ashley stripping for her boyfriend Kurt. Later, Ashley does another for just Clayton.
• Stag: sisters Kelly and Serena perform a raunchy striptease at Victor's stag party, to the whooping and cheers of all the men present.
• Asian School Girls: the girls take jobs at a strip club to finance their Roaring Rampage of Revenge on their rapists. The audience is treated to multiple strip routines.
• Stripped to Kill: With much of the action taking place in a strip club, there is a huge array of very professional striptease routines.
• Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? (1963): a trio (Dean Martin, Elizabeth Montgomery and Carol Burnett!) go to a bar and watch a stripper (Tura Satana) disrobe down to pasties and panties. Martin's character leaves, and the two women have no money. Stella (Burnett) says to the manager there must be some way they can pay. Suddenly she's on center stage, starting to dance, but all that's shown is a back shot of her starting to lift up the top of her dress. Melissa (Mongtomery) shouts "Oh Stella, no!" and the smiling manager rips up their check.
• We're the Millers (2013): Jennifer Aniston's character had pretended to be a housewife, then needs to prove she's really a stripper, and does she.
• Vota a Gundisalvo (1977): when a hired stripper doesn't show up to a political rally, a young woman (Yolanda Rios) is talked into filling in, told that democracy means sacrifices. Not being a professional, she doesn't tease much and the crowd doesn't initially react, but they definitely get entertained by the end, applauding when she's completely naked.
• Chattanooga Choo Choo (1984): cheerleaders learn a peeping Tom is in the next compartment, so they intentionally do a striptease down to their bras and panties, and one starts taking off her bra, to keep him watching while his eyebrow gets superglued to the wall. Barbara Eden's character, out of his view, simulates undressing to show them what to do, though she doesn't take anything off herself. "What's the matter, Mary Lou?" "This bra, it's t-t-t-too tight." "Well then, take it off!"
• Kill Cruise aka Der Skipper (1990): Elizabeth Hurley and Patsy Kensit's characters are bar singers, and not very successful. So after one song when the male audience says to show them something, the former does a striptease (mostly keeping herself covered with her dress) for bigger tips.
• Ghost Writer (1989): the ghost of a blonde bombshell can make herself visible to whom she wants. At a dance club, she lets everyone see her as she does an elegant striptease out of long gloves, a formal evening gown, and feather boa, to the crowd's cheers. Judy Landers ended completely nude, viewed from the side to stay barely within a PG rating, nipple-and-dimed with a handbra still showing much of a breast, and her leg strategically bent.
• The Man with Bogart's Face (1980): a woman is humiliated by being made to join a restaurant's bellydancers, but also strip. She takes off her dress, then is further directed to remove her bra, but as she unhooks it, the titular character saves her from showing more by hitting a large guard to create a distraction.
• Cybill Shepherd's movie debut in The Last Picture Show (1971) includes her character stripping completely nude in front of everyone at the swimming pool, a requirement of all skinny dipping newcomers.
• In Fist of Fury (1972), a woman dressed as a geisha entertains a small group with a striptease. She removes her robe and bra, keeping on her flower pasties and removing her panties, She doesn't hide herself in the back, and apparently gives the group a brief glimpse in front before covering herself.
• The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) ends with a fictionalized account of the modern striptease's accidental invention at the old Minsky's Burlesque establishment. A serious dancer's dress is inadvertently torn on stage, and when the audience is thrilled at the surprise, she enjoys their reaction so much that she starts an improvised striptease. Unzipping the back of her dress was part of the tease, but she inadvertently drops the top and briefly exposes her breasts (for which Britt Ekland had a body double), sparking the police raid.
• Breakfast at Tiffany's has a scene of Paul taking Holly for a drink at a striptease club, where not uncommon for the 1960s, Holly wasn't the only woman. She drunkenly asks as they watch a performer, "Do you think she's talented, deeply and importantly talented?" The theatrical release was rated "approved" and didn't show the stripper removing much. The 45th anniversary DVD release restored a little more, with the stripper removing her dress, and the camera cutting away to Holly's reaction when the stripper starts to undo the front of her bra.
• Fairy Tales (1978): one scene of this attempt at a softcore sex musical is Sheherezade turning her bellydancing into stripteasing completely nude. Nai Bonet showed herself only from the back, unfortunately.
• In the Brazilian film Bar Esperança aka Bar Esperanza (1983), a woman takes revenge against her husband by taking it all off in front of an eager crowd. With each piece of clothing, she says "This is for" something negative about her husband, as everyone cheers her on.
• National Lampoon's Vacation (1983): to encourage Clark to join her in skinny-dipping, the unnamed Ferrari Girl undresses very teasingly. She's shown unhooking the back of her bra, but everything after is only implied. In Christmas Vacation (1989), Clark imagines the pool he's planning to put in, and then fantasizes about the department store saleswoman doing a striptease out of a one-piece swimsuit.
• Rita Moreno played a stripper in Marlowe (1969), and in one scene at a club, she stripped down to a g-string and very small pasties, though supposedly over a body stocking. (The movie still received a PG rating, in the years before the PG-13 middleground.)
• The German movie Zwei Rebläuse Auf Dem Weg Zur Loreley (1974) has a scene in which two competing women (Anneliese Groebl and Marlene Rahn) strip completely nude at a bar in an impromptu popularity contest.
• Cassandra Peterson in The Working Girls (1974) did an old-fashioned, elegant striptease down to just panties, the only time in a motion picture that she appeared at least partially nude. As Elvira, she twirled tassels in "Mistress of the Dark" while in a showgirl costume, but not with any stripping. She appeared uncredited in the 1979 Happy Days episode "Burlesque," doing a very tame tease for family-friendly TV, taking off her skirt and leaving on her corset.
• In Les 1001 Nuits (The 1001 Nights) (1990), Scheherazade (Catherine Zeta-Jones in her movie debut) does a short striptease down to her panties for the sultan on their wedding night.
• Before Taxi stardom, Marilu Henner played a stripper in Between the Lines (1977), pulling down the top of a sexy criss-cross dress and dancing in pasties.
• The crime thriller Fear City (1984) is about men who book strippers in New York clubs, so naturally it shows a number of performances. Melanie Griffith stripped down to just panties and a boa.
• In Carlito's Way (1993), Gail (Penelope Ann Miller) is an aspiring ballet dancer who works as a topless stripper. When Carlito's old friend Lalin said he saw Gail, he described her as not just good, but "artistic, you know?"
• The Exotic Ones aka The Monster and the Stripper (1968) doesn't have much screen time for the captured Swamp Thing. So the main title is appropriate, or The Strippers and a Monster, as the movie is really a showcase for the performers at the club where the monster is brought. The burlesque and go-go stripteases don't have any real nudity, though, just tassel-twirling at most.
• The Silencers (1966) has attention-getting opening credits with two short stripteases, though they didn't show much. As the first opens the front of her one-piece, the movie title appears over her breasts. The second strips down to her bra and a boa, then the camera cuts away as she throws her boa.
• Senior Skip Day (2008): one of the party-goers gets on a table and does a striptease down to just her panties. Jessica Morris was 29 when playing a high school senior.

Literature

• In Carl Hiaasen's most famous novel, Strip Tease, Erin is a stripper and he describes her stripping fairly graphically at times. Much like bowling in The Big Lebowski, however, stripping is incidental to the plot of the book, only used as a setting and occasionally a source of the action.
• 1001 Tales of Arabian Nights has one particularly rowdy tale where three gorgeous sisters pick up a porter, get ridiculously drunk and then each strip in succession for the porter, who then returns the favor. Can't remember any of the other 1000 nights....
• Spellsinger features a stoat performing an elaborate exotic dance in a bar. The human hero Jon-Tom is horrified to find himself attracted to her, as he's not used to anthropomorphs.
• Otherland features a Brain Bleach Fetish Retardant subversion in a virtual strip club catering to, shall we say, a more perverted clientele. The girl disrobing for the slavering customers isn't taking off her clothes, but her skin.
• Gypsy Rose Lee's 1941 novel "The G-String Murders" has a lot of technical descriptions of the striptease acts in a burlesque hall.

Live-Action TV

• Baywatch has a scene with Carmen Electra. Guess what song she used for the striptease?
• House. To wit: in order to remember a diagnosis after a commotion-induced amnesia, House goes on a Journey to the Center of the Mind, where he meets a mental image of Cuddy. Given that this is Dr. House, she is quickly given a costume switch into a Sexy Schoolwoman outfit and strips while helping with said diagnosis. It's more of a subversion, though, since she stops after he starts to lose focus. She then lampshades the whole thing by saying that he'd rather be diagnosing than indulging in fantasy. He then takes a third option.
• Mad Men — twice (Nipple-and-Dimed, both times).
• In Battlestar Galactica Reimagined, Head!Six disrobes while walking up the stairs to Baltar's head!bedroom.
• Helga in Allo Allo has used this tactic several times to distract people. Amusingly, she only goes down to her attractive but complicated undergarments and bustier.
• In Britain's Got Talent, a 35-year-old lady stripped down to nipple tassels and a basque. One fell off, resulting in ITV pixellating the breasts with two Union Jacks. She did not get klaxoned by anyone and got three yes votes. She also got 39 complaints sent to Ofcom for inappropiateness (it was aired just after the Watershed, but the show had started at 7.45pm). No ruling has been made as yet.
• The European and American "Got Talent" shows have featured other striptease acts, Neo-burlesque star Michelle L'Amour famously stripped as Snow White and the next week used a Knight Rider theme.
• Lois Lane, on Smallville, undercover while Going for the Big Scoop. Although that was not "stripping", but a Bikini Bar. (She could have at least taken her hat off...)
• Two different episodes of Cleopatra 2525, with the emphasis on "tease" in both cases.
• In the Friends episode "The One with the Stripper", Monica hires a stripper for Chandler (because he didn't have a bachelor party), but she turns out to be a prostitute. Eventually, Monica herself does a striptease for him (but we don't see much of that).
• Holly J, to show her appreciation for current friend with benefits Sav, gives him a little show. However, Degrassi is still a teen drama on during primetime so she didn't go too far. She still ended up in a wonderfully fitting red cocktail dress with her hair down.
• In an episode of Grey's Anatomy, Cristina "comforts" an injured Burke with a striptease... only for his parents to walk in. Later, Mrs. Burke overhears Cristina referring to Bailey as "The Nazi" and gives her a dressing-down for it, causing Cristina to conclude "She thinks I'm a stripper. And a racist! She thinks I'm a racist stripper!"
• Happens occasionally on MST3K movies, but notably, almost any time a woman removes clothes for any reason, Mike/Joel and the Bots treat it like a strip tease: "Servo" (as saxophone plays) "Taaaaaaking off clothes music!"
• In season one of The Wire, the Barksdale organization's main base of operations was a strip club called Orlando's, so a great many scenes had background shots of strippers and dancers (many of whom were actual employees of the strip club they used for the location, according to creator David Simon). Supporting character Shardene Innes was a stripper who worked at the club, who we see performing once, disrobing to the waist.
• In an episode of the first season of French-Canadian sitcom Du Tac au Tac, set in a talent agency (circa 1976), a stripper they want to hire performs her routine but is interrupted and hides when some mobsters come looking for her. Genevieve (France Castel), an employee who was against the whole thing, is then forced into a striptease to try to convince the mobsters she was the one the music was playing for.
• The late 80s/early 90s Italian TV game show Colpo Grosso was all about this trope, with professional strippers, and the contestants too, stripping in the course of the game. The German version was called Tutti Frutti. In Spain, ¡Ay Que Calor!, and in Brazil, Cocktail. Strips during the game were down to g-strings at most, including contestants who often ended up in just panties or briefs. After the first season, shows ended with a Cin Cin "superstar" doing a fully nude "glossy" striptease. One, to the band's instrumental version of the trope song, took everything off since she didn't have a hat. In earlier seasons, lights were dimmed low to obscure a superstar with shadows before she finished taking off her panties. Eventually lights weren't dimmed as much, then not at all, and each episode opened with a costumed girl doing a topless striptease.
• The Spanish TV show Cronicas Marcianas often had Susana Reche performing a completely nude striptease at the end of the show.
• Another Spanish TV show, Condicion Feminina, featured stripteases by Daniela Blume, almost always completely nude too.
• Vitamina N, also from Spain, had a lot of stripteases, as well as willing female and male audience members stripping (frequently nude) while playing games or doing dares.
• Spanish TV's Un Día Es Un Día was an early 1990s variety show featuring celebrity interviews, musical acts, and a "striptis finale" conclusion. The women stripped down to just panties and sometimes completely nude, with costumes and sets much like classic burlesque. The stripteases naturally proved very popular, and a special episode Una Noche Es Una Noche reviewed the best acts.
• The French show Wiz Qui Peut had striptease acts the live audience would vote on.
• Also from France, the Narcisso Show had a female participant who would strip completely nude while lip-syncing (or lip-sync while stripping?), then be interviewed while still nude.
• The 1990s German TV show "Strip!" was entirely about its name, with judges scoring the stripteases. Almost all contestants were women (who almost always stripped fully nude), but some men competed in couples performances.
• Male and female contestants on the Russian TV game show Империя страсти (Empire of Passion) stripped as penalties for failing to dress mannequins, giving a new meaning to glasnost. No one took everything off, but it wasn't uncommon for a woman to end up in only her panties, and some weren't shy enough to need an armbra.
• By contrast, the short-lived Strip Poker (on the USA network cable channel) was generally considered ridiculous for the contestants' multiple layers of underwear.
• Argentina's Bailando por un Sueño (a version of Dancing with the Stars) became infamous for having both the man and woman strip during their dance. Stripping stopped after a season 8 performance went viral and generated international public scrutiny.
• Latin American TV is not shy about non-nude stripping, and sometimes it's gone farther. For a telethon, Sandra Bustamante did a striptease down to just a c-string, for a short time showing her bare breasts.
• Vamos Chile sometimes had stripteases, though without uncovered nudity. Licenciada Tetarelli (Noelia Arias) was especially popular for usually taking it off down to a handbra and g-string.
• Brazilian TV's Super Positivo featured Paloma Fiuza and others doing tamer stripteases down to bikinis.
• Japanese TV can be racy, and hostesses of the 1990s late night show Gilgamesh Night were usually adult video actresses. They often flashed and sometimes did stripteases.
• In one episode of the German comedy Zwei Himlische Töchter, Kikki (Ingrid Steeger) does a strip to coax a bull into boarding an airplane.
• In one episode of Passions, Charity got drunk enough at a ski lodge that she got up on a table and did an impromptu striptease.
• In one episode of Doctor in Charge, Emma Livingstone did an impromptu striptease at a party.
• In an episode of Gossip Girl, Blair was depressed by her break-up with Nate, and she went with Chuck to a burlesque club. He effectively dared her to go on stage with the girls to do her own striptease. The episode left it unknown if she took off her slip or anything more.
• Ashes to Ashes (2008) has Chris getting attractively postmodern to Shaz.
• One skit in Monty Python's Flying Circus is about a woman in her apartment saying how hot it is, and stripping down to her underwear. The continuity announcer (John Cleese) suddenly appears on a scaffold.
• In the Sheriff Lobo episode "The Big Game" (aka "The Panhandle Pussycats Come to Orly"), the football game crowd boos the arriving cheerleaders because they aren't the famous ones expected. So the cheerleaders decide to "give them a halftime show they'll never forget!" The stripping was very sexy for 1979 American TV, down to black bikinis and underwear.
• In the first season Remington Steele episode "Vintage Steele," Laura tells Remington she wants him "to forget the next five minutes of your life," then creates a distraction by getting bad guys to chase her as she hides and gives them her clothes piece by piece. She gets down to her slip before meeting Remington outside.
• In the TV series "Dark Justice," episode "The Specialist," a sex therapist does a striptease for a patient. Erin Gray was extremely sexy for broadcast TV, going down to her panties and an ambra, partly fulfilling one fantasy that many Buck Rogers fans had for years.
• The two-part pilot of "The Untouchables" includes a scene of a gangster watching his wife (Barbara Nichols) perform a striptease at his club. The TV version cuts away after she removes her bustier, befitting 1959 broadcast standards. The theatrical release "The Scarface Mob" went further in briefly showing her wearing pasties before she crosses her arms over her breasts.
• Early episodes of the 1990s Russian TV comedy Маски-шоу were set in a кабаре (cabaret), with old-fashioned burlesque comedy and occasional tame stripteases. One episode did show someone topless: she got into the mood and performed a more modern striptease down to her panties, then realized what she was doing and ran off stage, but it was more about the funny reactions of the audience.
• Suzanna Pleschette did a striptease in an episode of "The Invaders": it was far more tease than strip, necessary for 1967 American TV, showing her at the end walking off stage and holding out her corset. Eight years earlier, she had taken striptease lessons as part of auditioning for Gypsy.
• HBO's late 1970s specials "This Was Burlesque" and "With a Touch of Burlesque" were films of live stage shows, hosted by legendary stripper Ann Corio. As homages to old-fashioned acts, they were in fact mostly comedy skits, though burlesque can't be complete without stripteases too. Corio at first did not want the strippers to get topless, but she was persuaded to let them show more than in most classic burlesque.
• Playboy TV's early 1980s series "The Great American Strip-Off" showed both male and female strippers, keeping their bottoms on.
• Early in the first episode of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" is Midge's flashback of going with Joel to a traveling burlesque show, Just like classic burlesque, the stripper wore pasties (but one flew off in her shimmying), and the next act was a comic.
• In a 1995 episode of General Hospital, Lucy is dismayed that the Nurses Ball raised much less money than last year, and someone jokes, "You could always strip down to your knickers." So she decides to do just that, auctioning off her clothes a piece at a time in a deliberate striptease. She takes off the bottom part of her dress in front of everyone, but disappears behind the curtains before taking off the top. Man: "Did she just say what I think she said?" Woman: "She's gonna strip, isn't it great! Stripping doesn't have to be kinky. Didn't you see Natalie Wood in 'Gypsy'?"
• The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club was a mid-1970s British comedy set in a fictional establishment for working-class men, "where ladies are welcome but smoking is mandatory." The venue was much like a classic burlesque hall, with musical numbers, comedy routines, a host cracking jokes, and stripteases. British TV then didn't have the nudity like today, but it was still surprisingly sexy for broadcast TV to show strippers taking things off down to their bras and panties, and sometimes undoing their bras before disappearing off stage.
• Saucy as The Benny Hill Show could be, stripping wasn't its usual style. While Love Machine and the later Hill's Angels of course danced in bikinis and other sexy outfits, any actual taking off clothes in a longer, teasing manner was rare, and even then played up for comedy.
  • "Mad About You" (1973): Lee Gibson did a cabaret-style song and striptease, first pulling off her long gloves, then taking off her robe to finish singing in bra and panties. Her sexiness kept distracting her accompanyist (Benny).
  • "Beach of Waikiki" (1975): Diana Darvey did a sort of hula dance and took off her outer sarong, came back to dance and remove her other sarong, then came back to dance again, but that time popped off her wig.
  • "The Best Is Yet to Come/Doing the Flash": four beauties of Love Machine dance to Tony Bennett's "The Best Is Yet to Come" and remove their skirts. The music changes to classic striptease music and they act like they'll take off more, but when they duck behind tall dividers, that's when Benny and three cast regulars come out.
  • Poster girl (1981): Sue Upton's character starts playing "The Stripper" and enticingly undresses down to her bra and panties, to lure Benny's character off a ledge.
  • "Striptease" (1982): the Angels wore one-piece bodysuits and pantomimed a classic striptease, as if they wore dresses, without taking anything off. Then they were followed by Benny's clown "stripping" down to a skeleton.
  • Saucy Boy (1983): Corinne Russell as "Mahala" daringly wore just a g-string as she did an old-fashioned bubble dance (covering her breasts with a giant balloon). Then Benny as a naughty boy used a slingshot to try to pop her balloon, but popped her by accident, showing she was just an inflatable herself.
• The 1967 TV film Magical Mystery Tour has one scene of George Harrison and John Lennon going to Paul Raymond's Revue Bar, where they watch Jan Carson strip out of a professional style outfit, down to just her knickers and a boa. The original broadcast showed her taking off her bra, and her bare back as she shimmied, but other than a very brief glimpse of very little, a censor bar hid the side view of her breasts. The BBC would not have allowed the broadcast otherwise. The 2012 DVD release, in bonus material, finally showed her uncensored.
• Doctor in the House: in the 1970 episode "Take Off Your Clothes...and Hide," the boys go to a Soho club, and Rita (Jan Rossini) faints during her striptease. After being taken to hospital, she considers becoming a nurse, but she isn't very good at it. Instead she starts using a nurse's outfit in her act. Like with Wheeltappers, for the time it was quite sexy for British TV to show a woman stripping down to a bra and panties, and whereas Rita in her first act didn't get to remove her second bra, the second time around she did (but obscured by the camera angle).
• In the second half of the Freddy's Nightmares episode "Freddy's Tricks and Treats," a medical school student (played by a 24-year-old Mariska Hargitay!) has a dream recorded on tape: after noticing two peeping Toms outside her window, she decides to give them a show, doing a very tantalizing striptease down to her bra and panties, But the recording suddenly ends just as she starts to pull up her bra.
• The original Argentinian Rebelde Way, and then the Brazilian remake, had a few instances of a high school student suddenly doing a bit of a spontaneous striptease for a crowd. Usually it was out of her school uniform at an assembly dance performance, to obvious disapproval and discomfort of parents and school staff, while students cheered on. As it was a TV show and particularly about teenagers, the girl didn't strip beyond her bra and athletic shorts. There was still great criticism of sexualizing the actress Luisana Lopilato, who was only 15 when filming her scene.
• Chilean actress Katty Kowaleczko recreated the "True Lies" striptease for Teletón 2006, demonstrating the extent of her unswerving committment to charitable causes for children. She kept her bra on, unfortunately even if fitting with the film, whereas Sandra Bustamante several years later went topless for a telethon,
• A bar scene in the pilot episode of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues was filmed twice: a U.S. version with the strippers no more undressed than bikinis, and another version showing them topless.

Music

• The whole subject of Tom Waits' "Pasties and a G-String".
• And do we need to mention (again) the trope name? Didn't think so...
• "Strip Polka" was a 1942 hit about "Queenie the Cutie," a burlesque show's "thrill of the evening" who performed to a polka tune. The song implies she teased the audience more than revealed. At the time, stripteasers rarely showed very much, so striptease was generally considered tame enough that even the Andrews Sisters made their own recording of the song. Burlesque was everyday entertainment then and not entirely about strip acts. Originally burlesque was low-brow comedy and musical performances that started included scantily dressed female performers, then striptease acts, to bring in bigger audiences. It wasn't long before the first strippers naturally proved so popular that they became the highlight.

Music Videos

• Liv Tyler has a striptease scene in the Aerosmith video for "Crazy". Somewhat squicky in that it's the lead singer's daughter and all.
• Kylie Minogue's video to "Put Yourself in My Place". She starts off floating around wearing a spacesuit...
• Mylène Farmer strips completely nude (but covers herself with just a fleeting glimpse of her butt) in the official music video for "L'Amour n'est rien."

Myths & Religions

• This one even appears in the Fanon of The Bible.
  • The relevant part of the Gospels merely state that Herodias' daughter "danced" and got the head of John the Baptist. The fanon (specifically Oscar Wilde's Salome) has it as something called "The Dance of the Seven Veils", where she wears precisely seven veils over her body and removes all seven of them.
  • A non-fiction book about the Second World War mentions in passing that dramatisations of Bible stories were popular at the time, some, this one for example, moreso than others.
  • Simlarly in the book of Esther the Persian king summonned his queen Vashti "wearing her royal crown, in order to display her beauty to the people and nobles, for she was lovely to look at" (which she refused to do, and he banished her for it). This has been interpreted by some to mean "wearing only her crown".

Pro Wrestling

• In 1997, during an Extreme Championship Wrestling Pay-Per-View, damage to the ring caused a lengthy delay in the action. To calm down the notoriously rowdy ECW crowd, Kimona Wanalaya (later known as WCW's Leia Meow) voluntarily performed a long, "Seven Veils"-type striptease, until the ring could be repaired.
• Lucha VaVoom is fusion of wrestling and burlesque (comedy as well as striptease) based in Los Angeles.

Stage and Theater

• "Whatever Lola Wants" in Damn Yankees. Amazingly, Joe decides to Ignore the Fanservice.
• And, of course, Gypsy.
• "Ah, But Underneath" in Follies (used in some productions to replace "The Story of Lucy and Jessie").
• The dance of the seven veils in Salome. In some productions, it goes all the way to full nudity.
• "Take Back Your Mink" in Guys and Dolls, in which the Hot Box Dolls observe no distinction between "take back" and "take off."
• Ursula Martinez became internationally famous from a viral video of her "Hanky Panky" magic act: searching for her disappearing handkerchief involves taking off one piece of clothing after another, until she's completely naked on stage (save for high heels).

Video Games

• When you visit Votowne a second time in Anachronox, a reporter wants to schedule an interview with you, complete with a photoshoot. If the active member is Stiletto, he'll point out that he wants her to wear her beret for the shoot... and only her beret. If you have an other character active, the line is changed to include some other item that person wears, such as Sly's trenchcoat or Paco's cape.
• There is a rather entertaining scene in A Dance With Rogues, in which the character can make a show of it while stripping for a minor character who won't help her unless she pays him or screws him. If you make a show of it, he "goes off" prematurely and performs the teleport you wanted him to in a fit of rage.
• Heavy Rain: Madison is held at gunpoint and forced to strip tease for a skeezy nightclub owner.

Web Comics

• Girl Genius: This trope was referenced in the background of the Jäger Bar in Mechanicsburg, where the Jäger impersonator girls are seen dancing on-stage without their trousers on, singing "But I've still got my hat!" This is a bit culturally significant, due to the importance of hats in Jäger culture.
• The Web page for the Bonobo Conspiracy featured a "Site Traffic Strip-O-Meter". The more traffic the site received, the more clothes the cute girl removes, as explained in the FAQ.
• Flipside: When Maytag has sex with on guy she does this.

Web Original

• The web newscast Naked News has stripping news anchors.

Western Animation

• Stripperella. 'Nuff said.
• Fablio le Magicien, an old animated series illustrating La Fontaine's tales (adapted from Aesop's) with anthropomorphic animals, had two episodes featuring a striptease (one by a female rat and one by a female bird).
• Il giro del mondo degli innamorati di Peynet has a striptease in a series of psychedelic images accompanying a song, in the scene set in Britain. Beyond bizarre in featuring caricatures of the Beatles, one of whom opens his mouth wide to reveal the girl.
• Tex Avery's "Cross Country Detours" features a lizard shedding her skin as a striptease, complete with music. Especially for 1940, and more especially for Merrie Melodies, it was surprisingly revealing for a human female form to remove her dress that way, even if a big "CENSORED" was stamped on before anything was shown. Los Angeles nightclub stripper Marcia Eloise was hired for what is believed to be live film that was rotoscoped afterward.

Males

Anime & Manga

• Mercilessly teased in Full Metal Panic Fumoffu with Sôsuke. Due to losing a bet he made with a Camp Gay trio from the music club, he ended up having to keep his end of the promise and swim naked in a lake while they watch. He slowly unbuttons his uniform and starts slipping his jacket off his shoulders. And despite the fact that he was, in no way doing it sensually (in fact, his whole attitude is pretty much trying to get it over with), coupled with how he didn't even get that far into it, the whole scene still seemed strangely erotic and something that would definitely whet the appetite of fangirls (or fanboys). For Sôsuke, him publicly stripping is about as erotic as you can get him. Kaname's intervention was something of a Moment Killer, unfortunately....

Fan Works

• THIS Chess Piece, which is called "Only a Hat"... and has Vlad wearing... only a hat.
• What with all the sexy men, sexy hats, and sexy men wearing sexy hats, this was inevitable in the That Guy With The Glasses Kink Meme wasn't it? It's also quite common in fics for Linkara to ALWAYS keep his hat on.

Films — Live-Action

• The Full Monty: It's also, in a way, about this trope — the plot concerns a group of poor men who decide to do what no other male strip act does and "go the full monty", i.e. full-frontal nudity. It's a comedy, BTW. In fact, the last scene of the movie is set to "(You Can) Leave Your Hat On". And the final piece of clothing they toss off, to go the "full monty" is naturally, their hats.
• In The Transporter 3, Valentina makes Frank do one of these in exchange for his car keys.
• In Dostana, Kunal (John Abraham) strips down to his underwear. In a cab. In front of Sam (Abhishek Bachchan) who nervously steals glances at him.
• Jay in Clerks II strips while imitating Buffalo Bill's "Goodbye Horses" dance in front of the Mooby's restaurant out of boredom, complete with suggestive chapstick use.
• Pennies From Heaven has a Christopher Walken striptease. Must be seen to be believed.

Literature

• The Anita Blake books occasionally go into detailed and often lengthy descriptions of male strip acts. Given the number of professional strippers in Anita's harem, it's surprising how well she manages to avoid more of these. (The female strippers Anita encounters are almost invariably disposable sex workers who've already been disposed of.)
• Daemon, from The Black Jewels series, is very good at this. There's a reason his bedroom skills are referred to as "poisoned honey". Oh, and he's a pleasure slave. Who more often than not ends up brutally killing the corrupt Queens he serves.

Live-Action TV

• The Monty Python's Flying Circus sketches "Taking Your Clothes Off in Public" and "Secretary of State" have male stripteases, both performed by Terry Jones. In the second, he twirls his nipple tassels while making a political speech, and is followed by a belly-dancing Graham Chapman.
• In the season 2 premiere of Ashes to Ashes, Chris enjoys watching ladies strip off in a Soho nightclub. His girlfriend Shaz is rather annoyed at this. To make it up to her, seemingly on Alex's suggestion, he puts on a police uniform of the time and does the Full Monty, to Gene and Ray's huge bemusement. Not, however, having rip-off trousers, when he moves over to kiss Shaz after dropping his Y-fronts, he trips over the trousers around his ankles.
• On an episode of The Drew Carey Show parodying The Full Monty, Drew and the boys form a strip act in order to earn enough money to replace a dog they accidentally had neutered. (It Makes Sense in Context.) Lampshaded when the show ends and Drew gives the money to the audience, and the guys from The Full Monty are there. "That's for seeing me naked... that's for seeing me naked... hey, I saw you guys naked and I didn't get anything out of it!"
• In the Friends episode "The One Where the Stripper Cries", Monica and Rachel hire a male stripper for Phoebe's bachelorette party, but he isn't exactly what they expected (he's played by Danny DeVito).
• Well, The Full Monty certainly makes the rounds. In The Vicar of Dibley, one of the parish talent shows features Jim (Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, no) doing the full monty dance and (apparently) ending up naked (at least from the back).
• Mocked several times on Saturday Night Live. Once with a sketch that had Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley as the final contestants to join the Chippendale's dance troupe.
• Castle, as a cop show, was pretty much guaranteed to have a Strip Club Episode sooner or later. None of the main cast actually stripped (although Detective Ryan was encouraged to audition), but there were a lot of professionals. Including Hans von Manschaft.
• In the "Toni's Boys" episode of Charlie's Angels, Kris and Bob Sorenson watch a male stripper rehearse.
• The TV movie "Ladykillers" (1988) is about a cop going undercover to catch the murderer of male strippers. One scene comically shows several officers auditioning badly, except for the one eventually selected who's leaps and bounds better.

Music

• Yoshiki Hayashi of X Japan does this at least four times: his NUDE photobook, the Standing Sex and Longing commercials, and a set of fliers passed out for Yoshiki Mobile at the 2008 concerts....
• Angus Young of ACDC always strips down to his underwear in concerts.

Myths and Religion

• King David himself is so overcome with joy at the recapture of the Ark of the Covenant and its return to Jerusalem that he is moved to do a Chippendale in the street, to strip down to his royal loincloth and dance for joy — an action that earns him the Queen's reproof and criticism.
  

Theater

• The Full Monty is also a Broadway musical. Yes. Being a Broadway musical (that is to say, live theater), if, say, the lights should malfunction during even one show, then the audience might see what it's not supposed to. Worse yet, should an actor feel a little cheeky (no pun intended. Well, maybe a little) during a performance and jump ahead of the light cues, the audience gets more than they bargained for. Or less, depending on the actor in question.

Web Comics

• Most famously, Hark a Vagrant did a short Pride and Prejudice send-up comic, Ooh Mister Darcy, wherein Mr. Darcy states "I will leave my cravat on". This comic has been remade constantly with characters from various other fandoms, declaring which item of clothing they will leave on.

Web Original

• In the Vic Mignogna's Real Fans of Genius, this is inverted in the Yaoi Fangirl tribute: the hat will come off, but nothing else.
• In a DVD extra, The Nostalgia Critic stripteases out of a soaking wet Ghostbusters uniform while Rob (Doug's brother) films it and hums stripper music.

Western Animation

• In one episode of Ed, Edd n Eddy a boomerang changes everyone's personalities to their near-polar opposites. When Edd gets hit, he suddenly becomes something of a stripper (though really he seems to just be complaining about heat and he has no nudity taboo). The only thing he has on by the end of the episode is his hat.
• Happens to Baloo in the Tale Spin episode "Vowel Play".