[2] Since service personnel were, at that time, not encouraged to have professional lives outside the armed forces, British Army bandmaster F. J. Ricketts published "Colonel Bogey" and his other compositions under the pseudonym Kenneth J. Alford in 1914.
[3] One supposition is that the tune was inspired by a British military officer who "preferred to whistle a descending minor third" rather than shout "Fore!"
One of the contestants' answers was "After the Ball" after which the host (Benny Hill) responded with, "well, you're sort of half-right" referring to the anti-Hitler slur.
In the 1985 film The Breakfast Club, all the teenage main characters are whistling the tune during their Saturday detention when Principal Vernon (played by Paul Gleason) walks into the room.
In The Simpsons episode Stark Raving Dad, Bart initially writes a verse to a birthday song for Lisa to the tune of "Colonel Bogey March" albeit with jokey lyrics.
In The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode "I Know Why the Caged Bird Screams", the fictional ULA Peacocks have a fight song to the tune of the Colonel Bogey March.
[13] At the end of the ChuckleVision episode On the Hoof, Paul and Barry have to put on a marching band for a pompous government minister at an MI7 camp only for it to go awry.
[16] In Indonesia this march became the jingle tune for a medicine brand called Bodrex English composer Malcolm Arnold added a counter-march, which he titled "The River Kwai March", for the 1957 dramatic film The Bridge on the River Kwai, set during World War II.
He realized it had to be whistled rather than sung because the World War II-era lyrics (see "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball") were racy and would not get past the censors.
Percy Herbert was used as a consultant on the film because he had first-hand experience of Japanese POW camps; he was paid an extra £5 per week by Lean.