The Whiffenpoofs

Women matriculated at Yale beginning in 1969, and votes on the subject of admitting women to the Whiffenpoofs took place starting in the 1970s.[4] Each vote denied female singers the opportunity to join the group. Women were allowed "show" auditions but were never "tapped" (chosen) for the group. As recently as November 20, 2016, the group voted against admitting women.[5] A record number of women turned out for the 2017 auditions.[6]

In early February 2018, the Whiffenpoofs announced (in a joint statement with their sister group Whim 'n Rhythm) that students of all genders would be eligible to audition.[7] Later that month, the group accepted its first female member, Sofía Campoamor.[8] The following year, the group accepted its second female member and first woman of color, Neha Bhatt.[9] In February 2021, the Whiffenpoofs selected their first non-male leader, Syd Bakal, as business manager for the '22 Whiffenpoofs.[10]

The song has been covered many times. It became a hit for Rudy Vallée in 1937 and in 1947 for Bing Crosby, credited to Bing Crosby with Fred Waring and The Glee Club (Decca 73940). It has also been recorded by Elvis Presley, Count Basie, Perry Como, Ray Conniff, Mitch Miller, the Ames Brothers, the Statler Brothers, the Sons of the Pioneers, Louis Armstrong, and countless others.

The chorus, as sung by flyers and crews of the U.S. Army Air Forces' daylight bombing effort during World War II, played a key role in the 1949 movie 12 O'Clock High. It is heard first in the background when Harvey Stovall (Dean Jagger) surveys the abandoned Archbury airfield in 1949, just before his flashback to 1942 begins. The men sing it quietly in the Officer's Club after the unit receives its first commendation, baffling Stovall and General Savage (Gregory Peck) with their subdued reaction: “They aren't celebrating the way kids ought to…” At the end of the film, when Stovall returns to the present, the refrain of “Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree” shifts with a flourish of trumpets to the remembered voices singing “We're poor kittle lambs.. “ which becomes a triumphant instrumental phrase and fanfare over “The End.”

In the 1952 comedy film Monkey Business, the tune comes on the radio and Cary Grant starts singing it to Marilyn Monroe, who declares it "a silly song". Later, Ginger Rogers sings it to Grant and describes it as "our song". And later still, Grant sings it to Rogers when he is locked out of the hotel room.

In the 1952 film Road to Bali from Paramount Pictures, starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour, Hope and Crosby find themselves in front of a herd of sheep. They sing the first part of the song's chorus with the special effect sheep "choir" adding the ending "Baa!, Baa!, Baa!" Crosby remarks, "That was helpful, wasn't it?" and Hope retorts, "Fred Waring must have played through here", referring to Bing's hit single of the tune, which was backed by Waring and his Glee Club.[14]

The melody is the opening theme of the 1975 television series Baa Baa Black Sheep, a fictionalization of the World War II wartime exploits of the United States Marine Corps Marine Fighter Squadron VMF-214, ancestor of the Corps's present-day VMA-214 "Black Sheep" Squadron. "The Whiffenpoof Song" has long been associated with the VMA-214. One of the squadron's members, Paul "Moon" Mullen, adapted "The Whiffenpoof Song" for the squadron's use.[15] The squadron's badge features a gamboling black lamb that refers back to the song.

The Whiffenpoofs can be heard singing it in the 2006 movie The Good Shepherd, in the scene where Matt Damon's son tells him he wants to join the CIA.

In the play Serenading Louie by Lanford Wilson, performed at the Donmar Warehouse in London in 2010, the song is sung by the cast and by Bing Crosby.

During the song "Together Again" in the musical version of Young Frankenstein, Frederick Frankenstein confesses to Igor that he "was in fact the Whiffenpoof at Yale", which impresses Igor.

In The Simpsons episode "The Caper Chase", the Whiffenpoofs perform the song to Montgomery Burns, who offers the college a new library if he will have them killed.

Musical satirist Tom Lehrer spoofed "The Whiffenpoof Song" as part of his song "Bright College Days." Lehrer, an instructor at Yale's traditional rival Harvard University, sings of "glasses raised on high" (at which point he removes his eyeglasses and holds them up) and of drinking a toast "to those we love the best", to rhyme with "we'll pass [which may mean 'pass the final exams' or 'die'] and be forgotten with the rest." He also sings "to the tables down at Mory's, wherever that may be...", evoking a laugh from the Harvard auditorium crowd at the live recording.[16]

In 1973, the Harvard Krokodiloes debuted a spoof, "The Krokenpoof Song", with Harvard-specific lyrics, tongue-in-cheek references, bawdy variations involving references to Whiffenpoofs and sheep, rhymes such as "We'll drink lemonade Drambuie" in place of "We will serenade our Louis", and ending with "Baa, baa, humbug!"

Mad produced parody lyrics of it that were reprinted in the 1973 book The Mad Sampler. Titled "The Hundred-Proofs Song", it suggested that rich students forgot about their studies and resorted to getting drunk at the bar, "...earning the grades we deserve, we know; – F – F – F!"

Louis Armstrong recorded a satirical version of the song, subtitled (or maybe alternatively titled) "The Boppenpoof Song", poking fun at the bebop movement in jazz. His friend Rudy Vallée contributed lyrics to that version.

The introduction and a parody of the first verse are sung by Betty Grable during the graduation scene in How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955).

A parody of the chorus was included in the Two Ronnies' barbershop sketch in 1978.[17]

The song serves as the basis for the University of Montevallo's Purple Side song, which is part of the College Night homecoming tradition.