BVD - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• 1920: BVDs are mentioned to have been worn in F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel This Side of Paradise.
• 1922: George F. Babbitt wears B.V.D. undershirts in Sinclair Lewis's novel, Babbitt.
• 1922: An intertitle in the Buster Keaton silent film The Paleface mentions B.V.D's.
• 1925: In the silent film The Big Parade, a group of Army soldiers sing a song while doing their laundry in a stream. Among the lines of the song displayed via intertitles, the soldiers sing: "We drown the fleas / In our Bee Vee Dees, / We're in the army now!"
• 1931: BVDs are mentioned in the Mills Brothers version of the Stanley Adams song "Coney Island Washboard" (originally published in 1926, and also recorded by Hoagie Carmichael in 1950, and in 1967 by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band).
• 1933: BVDs are mentioned in the film adaptation of 42nd Street
• 1933: Robert Young asks for BVD's in the opening scene of "When Ladies Meet".
• 1952: BVDs are mentioned by mathematician and satiric songwriter Tom Lehrer in his song about weapons testing in the western United States, "The Wild West Is Where I Want To Be": "And of course I'll wear a pair o' Levis over my lead BVD's."
• 1955: BVDs are mentioned in some versions of the pop standard song "Hard Hearted Hannah (The Vamp of Savannah)", including the version sung by Ella Fitzgerald in the 1955 film Pete Kelly's Blues.
• 1975: BVDs are mentioned by Andy Warhol in "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol": "After I check myself out in the mirror, I slip into my BVDs. Nudity is a threat to my existence."
• 1990: BVD's are mentioned in the C+C Music Factory single Things That Make You Go Hmmm...: "...ain't no way he could be cheatin' on me, I wonder who bought him those BVD's..."
• 2000s: BVDs are mentioned throughout Cindy Gerards' 'Bodyguard' series.
• Many children are introduced to the word BVDs through the camp song, "Bye Bye BVDs".