- For the 1941 Abbott & Costello film, see In the Navy (film).
"In the Navy" is a 1979 hit song (U.S. #3) by Village People. The music video for the song was shot aboard the USS Reasoner (FF-1063), with the help of the United States Navy which actually used the song in promotional advertising until protests erupted over using taxpayer money for a music video of a controversial group. The song, as is the case with many other Village People songs, is often considered a gay anthem.[citation needed]
[edit] Pop-culture occurrences
- Captain Jack rerecorded a cover of the song and it was parodied by Billy Connolly as "In the Brownies".
- The song is performed during a sketch on The Muppet Show, in which Viking Pigs raid an unnamed village whilst singing the song.
- Japanese female pop duo Pink Lady had a top 10 hit in Japan in 1979 with a cover of "In The Navy" titled "Pink Typhoon"(ja), which substituted the words "Pink Lady" ("Pin-ku Re-di") for "In the navy" in the song's chorus and "I want you, you want Mie/I want you, you want Kei" (referring to group members Mie Nemoto and Kei Masuda) for "They want you as a new recruit."
- The Captain Jack version was in the game Dance Dance Revolution.
- The song is played in The Simpsons episode "Simpson Tide" (where it's identified as an "ancient sea shanty"!) and it ends as a submarine submerges (taking the Village People, and Smithers, with it). It is also briefly sung by The Sea Captain in the episode "Mr. Plow".
- The finale of the 2000 Leslie Nielsen comedy 2001: A Space Travesty features a performance of "In the Navy" sung by impersonators of the Three Tenors.
- A modernized music video version of the song, featuring the cast of the film along with the Village People is in the end credits of the movie Down Periscope.
- The song appears in the series JAG in an episode featuring the wedding of Lt. J.G. Bud Roberts and Ensign Harriet Simms. Lieutenant Commander Harmon Rabb's high collar white tunic was missing (the dry cleaners gave it to the wrong customer, who happened to be a male stripper). Rabb found it while the customer was stripping to the tune of this song. Major MacKenzie, Simms and her mother were in the audience.
- The Israeli pop-rock band "Tislam" has a very famous line in on of their greatest hits, "Tnu Li Rockn'Roll" (Give me Rock 'n'Roll), that says "Hoshavt oti Ba'cheder etmol ad meuchar, lishmo'a Indeonezi shel Anshei Hakfar" (You sat me down in the room yesterday evening, to hear "Indinezi" by The Village People). This line was written after the songwriter, Yair Nitzani, was a DJ at a club where people kept asking him to put on the song "Indonezi" (meaning "Indonesian") because they misheard the real name of the song. This is an example of a mondegreen, the mishearing of a phrase such that it acquires a new meaning.
- The song is referenced in the 2001 video game Grand Theft Auto III when a construction worker says the line "In The Navy".
- In Irregular Webcomic by David Morgan-Mar, this song is referenced in strip 1494.
- During the Britain's Got Talent 2009 Semi-Final, the dance group, Faces of Disco, danced to "In the Navy".
