Undressed to kill.note
"You wear cartoony boxer shorts, you're begging to have your clothes stolen!"
— Duckman, after having mugged two Germans for their clothes.
Exposing a character's underwear is always good for a laugh. This goes double if they have underwear with a silly or embarrassing print on it. Boxer shorts with polka dots, or better yet hearts on them seem to be popular. To the extent where it seems like nearly everyone in cartoons wears these. Well, that or these boxers cause trouser accidents.
Presumably, the fact that they wear utterly tasteless undies adds to the character's discomfort at being de-pantsed, receiving a wedgie or ripping the seat of their pants, especially if they try to maintain a hard-man reputation.
A Cringe Comedy may invoke Serial Escalation by having the victim wear elephant print underpants, with a humorous trunk on the fly which unrolls to an unrealistic length.
On the other hand, a female character in this type of underwear can be pretty potent Fanservice, especially if she looks much too mature to still be wearing them. If a woman is caught in nothing but, say, Snoopy panties, expect a male character to suddenly "remember" how much he's always admired the Peanuts gang (which, in fact, is similar to what happened to Chris Tucker in one of the Rush Hour films, only with a tattoo instead of panties).
A Sister Trope to Fun T-Shirt.
Example subpages:
Other examples:
open/close all folders
Advertising
Other-print boxers
- There was a Wisk Plus laundry detergent ad a while back that had a woman magically teleport the clothes off of a bunch of hunky construction worker types, leaving them in their underwear. Naturally, one guy had bunny rabbit print undies, leading to this memorable exchange at the end of the ad:
First Guy: You got bunnies on your shorts?
Second Guy: [archly] Killer bunnies.
Childish women's underwear
- In an ad for Carls, Jr., hamburgers shows a Turkish beauty queen walking out onto a hotel pool area. She strips off her gown and sash, leaving herself in nothing but a bikini swimsuit illustrated with little cartoons of the burger she's advertising, which looks like childish underwear when viewed from a distance. One mother covers the eyes of her little son, but whether this is Deliberate Values Dissonance or because the bikini looks like silly underwear cannot be determined.
- For one of Metlink's "Fare Evasion Karma" poster, it depicted a lady who was walking with her skirt tucked in her underwear, unaware. Such underwear was depicted as white and adorned with hearts.
- The girl in this
Levi’s commercial gets caught trying to steal a guy’s wallet, so he steals her skirt in return. She’s revealed to be wearing Pink Panties with a Teddy Bear on them, which he reacts to by giving her a flirtatious grin, which she surprisingly reciprocates, unlike a random girl who witnessed the whole thing and just reacts with an annoyed gesture.
Asian Animation
- In Happy Heroes, Big M. is shown on a few occasions to be wearing underwear with a heart pattern on it.
- Lamput: In "Airport", one of the items in the docs' suitcase is a pair of underwear with a heart-pattern print on them.
- Simple Samosa: In "Chhote Rajaji", we get to see Cham Cham's shorts, which have a heart-print pattern on them and are marked with his name.
Comic Books
Boxers with red/pink hearts
- The Savage Dragon has been known to wear print◊ boxers◊, including the classic hearts.◊
- Wolverine was shown wearing such underpants when he tried to go through airport security, but his adamantium skeleton kept setting off the metal detectors.
Other-print boxers
- The Riddler apparently has green question-mark print boxers.
- Deadpool is occasionally seen in boxers with his logo (a stylized version of his mask) on them.
- He's also occasionally seen in boxers featuring other heroes' logos, including Captain America. One gag featured him upset that his Squirrel Girl Underoos(TM) were improperly washed. That's right, Squirrel Girl. Might explain why she's so vicious towards him.
- And to make matters even nuttier, that particular issue happened long before Deadpool even knew that Squirrel Girl even existed. Here at TV Tropes, we like to call this foreshadowing.
- His recent adventures take this to a whole new level of horrifying as he has acquired Jean "Marvel Girl" Grey's original costume, complete with tiny yellow panties. An attempt to impress some ladies by stripping down reveals that he wears these when his other clothes are being laundered.
- He's also occasionally seen in boxers featuring other heroes' logos, including Captain America. One gag featured him upset that his Squirrel Girl Underoos(TM) were improperly washed. That's right, Squirrel Girl. Might explain why she's so vicious towards him.
- David Qin from Strangers in Paradise also had a pair with teddy bear print. They were a gift.
- A Doctor Who Magazine comic strip featured the Eighth Doctor jumping through various Elseworlds. In the one where he was an ordinary human in a relationship with Dr Grace, the one Doctor-ish touch was the question-mark print boxers.
- Spider-Man In "Perceptions", Peter wore Felix the Cat boxers.◊ (Artist Todd McFarlaine often slipped Felix into the background art, and in this story, where a character actually commented on it, he was scripting the story as well.)
- Supergirl (Wednesday Comics): One mailman who gets his pants ripped off by Krypto the Superdog wears white boxer shorts with little read hearts.
- Superman: In a story where Mr Mxyzptlk had taken over Metropolis and Superman and Lex Luthor were in an Enemy Mine situation, they attempt to infiltrate "Mxcorp" disguised as guards. Mxy waves a hand to remove their uniforms leaving them in boxers. Supes were blue with an S-shield pattern, and Lex had green with "L"s. (It seems likely Mxy added this touch For the Lulz.)
- The cover of the 2000 AD Free Comic Book Day 2014 issue is a parody of the famous image from Spider-Man #50 ("Spider-Man No More!") in which Pete in street clothes walks away from a bin with his Spidey-suit in it. On this cover Judge Dredd is walking away from a re-syk bin containing his Judge uniform, while wearing nothing except boxers printed with his badge.
Other men's underwear
- Wally West once ran around in fruity◊ briefs◊ under mind control.
- In Rocket Raccoon (2016) #5, while fighting Kraven the Hunter, Rocket pulls open Kraven's tights to throw a flashbang inside, revealing his pink heart-print briefs.
- Additionally, in the previous two comics of that arc, Rocket ran around New York City in nothing but his tighty-whiteys and gloves.
- Mr. Beaver is seen wearing light purple briefs with little white hearts in the second issue.
Childish women's underwear
- Empowered owns a pair of Capitan Rivet-printed panties. And the matching t-shirt.
- Scandal Savage has a pair of polka dot boyshorts. Ragdoll, meanwhile, has yellow footie pajamas, complete with buttflap.
- When a trio of action scientists in Atomic Robo had to strip before a tribe of rock people, we see the female one's panties have a cartoon bear head on them.
- Batwoman: Evidently, Kate Kane has a pair of planet-printed briefs.
- A Running Gag in the Amanda Conner/Jim Palmiotti era of Harley Quinn is Harley's tendency to wear colourful underwear with fun prints. Once or twice, her girlfriend Poison Ivy is shown similarly.
- Another Conner/Palmiotti example would also be in the pages of their Power Girl run, where Peeg's sidekick, Terra, once had to help with some superheroing while on a day out, but lacking her costume, she just stripped to her underwear, which had a cartoon ladybug printed on the butt.
Comic Strips
Polka-Dot boxers
- Most of the male characters of Pluggers have been shown in these at least once.
Other-print boxers
- One arc of Breaking Cat News features the cats at the vet. During their exams, they're in underwear. Sweet-natured Puck, of course, wears white boxers with red hearts.
- Elvis also wears heart-printed boxers in one strip because he thinks it's too hot to wear pants.
- Elvis also wears heart-printed boxers in one strip because he thinks it's too hot to wear pants
- Jon Arbuckle from Garfield's wardrobe of underwear consists entirely of brightly colored (and patterned) boxers.
- Including a pair that glows in the dark.
- One strip from the mid-90s also features Jon getting caught outside the house one morning while wearing his bunny footy pajamas.
- Including a pair that glows in the dark.
- Not sure if this counts as newspaper comics, but this◊ WWII propaganda poster shows Hitler wearing boxers with swastikas on them.
- In Zits Jeremy's dad wears heart boxers.
Other men's underwear
- Calvin's rocketship briefs, used for gags at least three times.
- Somewhat subverted in that he's actually very proud of them, and (being Calvin) is implied to show them off any chance he gets.
- Except on the day where he rips his pants and then has to do a problem on the chalkboard, though this may be due to his Ping Pong Naïveté.
- He finds it hard to be without his cartoon underpants, having a need to gird his loins with funny animals.
- In a Sunday Strip drawn as one of Susie's fantasies where Calvin and Susie are an adult couple, Calvin tells Susie he's not her husband but "Wonga-Taa, king of jungle" and strips off his suit until he's wearing only leopard-print briefs. Susie's reaction: "Oh, nice underpants! You're really gross."
- Somewhat subverted in that he's actually very proud of them, and (being Calvin) is implied to show them off any chance he gets.
- FoxTrot's Jason wears Unix underpants.
Childish women's underwear
- Broom Hilda often has an accidental dress lift that reveals a rather nautical set of boxers.
- Sometimes, the letters USMC can be seen near the hem.
- Skye, from Doonesbury, tries to prove she isn’t evil by mentioning she wears Hello Kitty underwear.
- After Tiffany recorded a video of Luann changing in the locker room to use as blackmail material, Luann wished she hadn't been wearing her Pooh bear underwear.
Fan Works
Other-print boxers
- In Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami, Mello has underwear with Ms on them. Dark has the same kind of underwear, except with Ds on them.
- Heck, almost every Death Note fanfic where Matt's underwear may be mentioned (most commonly Slash Fics of him and Mello), they'll be printed with something related to Super Mario Bros., Pokémon, The Legend of Zelda, etc.
- In the Gender Flip fanfic Nerima Magistra Nelly Magi, Asuma (the male version of Asuna) wears pink boxer shorts with teddy bears on them.
- In Lies On L wears strawberry-print boxers.
- Hank Stanley from Emergency! gets fire engine print boxers for Christmas from his wife here.
- In Courting a Malfoy Harry has boxers with Golden Snitches on them.
- Harry also has Snitch undies in Harry Potter and the Dream Come True.
- In This Bites!, when he gets his pants bitten off by the newly human Merry, Garp is revealed to wear fire-hydrant boxers.
- In The AFR Universe story "the King of Thieves", the Phantom Thieves are playing the King's Gang. One of the dares leaves Yusuke losing his pants. He's currently wearing boxer shorts modeled after the pelvic area of Michelangelo's David to Futaba's horror.
- In Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin one of the seventh-year Slytherin prefects wears black boxers with green and silver snakes on them.
- Lincoln's Memories: Lincoln Loud's first underwear had UFO's on them.
- Pokémon Crossing: Several chapters note Holly’s tacky boxers (namely, ones with cutesy Johto Pokémon on them like Mareep or Togepi).
- In Sacrifices and Second Chances an angry Marlene vanishes Sirius' pants, revealing his unicorn boxers.
- In Hiding Sirius' portrait mentions a prank which turned a teenage Snape's clothing inside out, revealing his purple dinosaur undies.
- In Something Borrowed, Something Blue when Harry and Draco get married Harry's "something borrowed" is a pair of boxers Theo gave Draco as a gag gift. The undies in question sport hearts, rainbows and unicorns which state "I'm horny!".
- In Harry Potter and the Book of Lost Souls Harry's accidental magic makes Dudley's trouser button pop off, revealing his Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle underpants.
- In The Debate Cormac is wearing nothing but My Little Pony underpants when he's dragged out by bouncers for slapping a prostitute.
- In Saying No, Hermione compliments Seamus' Batman underwear.
Childish women's underwear
- Anger Management: Ronnie Anne wears bunny underwear.
- In Ash's New Look, the final nail on the coffin of Ash's male dignity; Pikachu panties.
- PotterPuffs Harry Potter fan art reveals Death Eater underwear, including Narcissa's hilarious HelloKitty panties◊.
- Lucy's Secret: Lucy wears Princess Pony undies, so she's embarrassed when Lori sees a discarded pair.
- In Kyon: Big Damn Hero Kimidori Emiri wears Trope-tan print underwear.
- PMD: Another Perspective: Strewn about in the clearing with Purry's bag is the clothing she was wearing when she entered the portal. Blazy holds up a pair of panties with a Meowth's face on them and starts asking what it is, only for Purry to snatch them away and hide them behind her back while blushing.
- In the This Time Round fic "Like Water for Adric" Bernice Summerfield wears pants printed with whisky bottles.
Literature
Other-print boxers
- In Chronicles of a Strange Kingdom the jester Jacques wears knee-long underpants with red hearts and yellow daisies, and the Perpetual Frowner assassin Cantor wears brightly striped ones. Both give their friend Olga fits of hysterical laughter.note When the jester tells about it to king Shellar (who always wears black), the king deadpans that the assassin kills people with laughter by showing them his underwear.
- In the Quebecois novel Le Dernier Des Raisins, Francois's are pink with elephants.
- In one of the Doctor Who Expanded Universe novels, one of the Doctor's companions has underpants with a carrot on the front. He's not especially embarrassed by them, but another of the Doctor's companions is embarrassed to see them.
- In Grave Peril, one of The Dresden Files books, Harry Dresden fought off vampires while wearing only yellow ducky boxers (especially amusing as he'd stolen them from the vampires' laundry room). It's since become a running joke in the fandom.
- From Life's Little Instruction Book:
127. Wear audacious underwear under the most solemn business attire.
- In The Saga of Darren Shan, Gavner Purl has bright yellow boxers with tiny pink elephants (a gift from his girlfriend).
Childish women's underwear
- Kate Daniels once woke up in shapeshifters' HQ after severe injuries. When she gets out of the bed, she (and Curan) realize she's wearing underwear with pretty little bows. She has yet to live this down.
- When her dog Igor accidentally uses the X-ray projector on her in Attack of the 50-Ft. Cupid, Franny K. Stein is shown to wear panties that have bats on them.
- In the Babysitters Little Sister books, Karen steals the underwear of a boy in her class off the clothesline and waves it around the classroom in an Escalating War of Jerkassness. He retaliates the next day by doing likewise to the Minnie Mouse underpants her grandmother bought for her.
- When the Monkey King came to Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe, he raided panties from every girls' dorm there. Some of the trophies included teddy bear panties, and a pair of My Little Pony panties that he left on the flagpole. Rumor has it they belong to Dragonrider, the daughter of supervillain Devilmaster.
Music
Boxers with red/pink hearts
- One of the photos in the lyric booklet for Weird Al's Mandatory Fun depicts him in a military uniform with his pants down, exposing his heart boxers.
- Near the end of Mercedes Lackey's song "The Oklahoma Weed-Whacker Massacre," about a man whose mind snaps under the pressure of competitive lawn maintenance, leading him to run around slicing people's clothing off with his weed-whacker:
Next thing you come to see,
Well, there's Tulsa County Sheriff,
Standin' there in front of God and CBS and who knows who,
Wearin' nothin' but his boots
And the belt that held his pistol
And his TV Tummy-Toner
And his best Smurf boxer shorts.
- In the music video for Theory of a Deadman's Bad Girlfriend, the titular bad girlfriend wears brief panties with "Bad Girlfriend" written across the back.
- In the music video for Pistol Annies' ''Hush Hush", Ashley Monroe flips up her skirt to reveal her frilly pink bloomers which read "Hippie" across the back, which is played for laughs and tongue-in-cheek rebellion at a church potluck gathering.
- The cover for Amanda Palmer's ''Amanda Goes Down Under" depicts Palmer wearing boyshorts depicting the Australian flag.
Pinball
- In Scared Stiff, the Stiff In The Coffin is revealed to be wearing boxers with little hearts on them.
Professional Wrestling
- This happens a lot in pro wrestling, mostly for comedic effect:
- TNA wrestler Eric Young stripped down to a pair of SpongeBob boxers during one PPV, and beat amazingly well-endowed valet Traci Brooks in a bikini contest.
- At one point in the WWE, proud Canadian Lance Storm was pantsed, revealing that he wore Power Rangers underwear.
Other men's underwear
- Jim Cornette was in the wrestling business for decades, and over those many years his pants would occasionally snag to due his own missteps, the actions of another worker or even attacks from enraged fans. Whatever the occasion, he would ALWAYS be wearing some ugly pattern on his underwear. Sometimes they were handmade, by Cornette himself, as he later revealed stores didn't always have something stupid enough to wear, literally turning this trope into an art form in of itself.
- In a Tuxedo Match, Santino Marella stripped Ricardo Rodriguez, Alberto Del Rio's manservant, down to a pair of white briefs with a silhouetted image of Del Rio's face on the seat, in a WWE moment that was definitely not disturbing at all.
Childish women's underwear
- Stacy Keibler wore a ridiculously frilly pair of pink panties when she, Jackie Gayda, Sable, and Torrie Wilson competed in a Lingerie Match at WrestleMania XX.
- Once, when she was a member of Right to Censor, Ivory was stripped down by several other Divas to her polka-dot panties. Especially embarrassing because she had a reputation as a loud-mouthed, tomboyish Dark Action Girl.
Puppet Shows
Other-print boxers
- In the Spike Milligan episode of The Muppet Show, he drops his trousers twice: the first time his boxers have the Union Jack on them, the second time, the Stars and Stripes.
Toys
- The "Deadpool and chill" Marvel Legends figure is sculpted wearing boxers that have his usual logo turned into hearts.
- The Plumber Pants game by Creator/Hasbro, in which players load the plumber's belt with tools, leading to his pants falling and exposing his heart-print boxers.
Visual Novels
- In Rewrite, Kotarou gets a view of Chihaya's panties as he saves her from being stuck in a tree (It's a long story...). After that, "cherries" is not a good word for him to say around her.
- In Little Busters!, Rikki accidentally sees Komari's panties while helping to free her from a water tank on the school roof. At first he isn't sure if the animal represented is an anteater or armadillo, and when Komari finds out he saw her she wails that now she won't be able to get a bride (not be a bride, ''get'' one).
- Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney:
- Trucy Wright's "magic panties" are blue with red hearts.
- Plum's are huge bloomers with her namesake flower on them.
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc:
- School Mode offers up one of the student's underwear as a prize for earning that character's ending. In here it's revealed that Hifumi wears a pair of colorful briefs modeled around a Super Robot Humongous Mecha from one of his favorite anime, which was a subject of Chapter 3 in the main story (that includes both the robot and the underwear).
- The art book reveals that Makoto (who, as the protagonist, can't receive a School Mode Ending) wears white undershorts with a pattern of yellow stars covering them.
- In the H-Game Kimihagu, Emily wears white briefs that have blue/pink hearts and the words "Sweet Baby" all over on them. At an earlier point in the game, she wears pink panties with a Tanuki face on the front.
- In ClockUp's Euphoria, Rika wears yellow panties with pink hearts on them.
Web Animation
Boxers with red/pink hearts
- In the Chimney Chickens episode Date Envy, Blaze photocopies his white-with-red-hearts underpants as an Infraction Distraction trying not to get caught photocopying student records.
- In the Happy Tree Friends episode "Gems the Breaks", Splendid is seen wearing these under his hazmat suit when he gets pantsed.
Other-print boxers
- In the Cartoon Hooligans episode "The Rumors About Spider-Man and Deadpool", Spider-Man is revealed to be wearing​ underwear with polka dots.
- In Homestar Runner, somebody once sent in a photograph of their Stinkoman underwear.
- Strong Bad's underwear apparently has lipstick marks on it, but if they were received from actual kisses... well, let's just say he really is a ladies' man.
Childish women's underwear
- In Lady Lumps VS Boy Bumps, some characters are revealed to wear underwear with a picture of the person they love printed on them (sometimes with hearts, too). For instance, Amy has Sonic on hers, Sakura has Sasuke on hers, and Cloud has Sephiroth on his.
Web Videos
Boxers with red/pink hearts
- In The Sims 3 version of My Immortal, "Snap" is wearing these when Ebony catches him and "Loopin" having sex with Dobby watching.
- Dr. Insano is revealed to have a set of these when Linkara asks him why he's not wearing pants during the Warrior #4 review.
Other-print boxers
- When Danielbeast of lonelygirl15 is shown to be wearing "English flag underwear" (actually the Union Flag) in "Crazy Emo Chick", he protests that he hasn't had a chance to do laundry lately, so they were all he had to wear.
- In The Nostalgia Chick's "Least Awful Disney Sequels" review, she discusses a hypothetical Disney movie about Anne Frank. A Brick Joke in the credits adds "The Nazi's sidekick has a funny polka dot underwear joke!"
Childish women's underwear
- Shiro Luna is a let's player who draws OC's who are all women with very childish undies. They provide both fanservice and comic relief.
Real Life
- Many stores carry "loungewear" with various patterns and designs licensed from cartoons, television, movies, or so on. However, finding boxer shorts with red hearts on them is surprisingly difficult, unless you're looking around Valentine's Day.
- Originally marketed by Fruit of the Loom there are Underoos, media themed underwear for children that has been popular since 1977.
- There are now adult-sized underoos popular as a nostalgia item.
- This pair of boxers is labelled "home of the whopper."
- Don't forget your pink "I ♥ NY" boxers when going into combat◊.
- In a similar vein, panties with "Mind the Gap" printed on them are a popular London souvenir.
- This is a regular staple of Improv Everywhere's annual No Pants Subway Ride.
- There's an online shop called Me Undies which carries underwear for both men and women in cute goofy prints, as well as standard solid colors.
- "Lazy One" has an entire line of funny boxers with cartoon animals along with butt and fart jokes on the backside.
- At the weigh-in before the 2022 boxing match between strongmen Eddie Hall and Hafþór JúlÃus Björnsson, Eddie showed off his cheeky humor by stripping down in front of the camera to a pair of blue briefs decorated with yellow rubber duckies.
- Make sure you don't rip your pants when wearing goofy underwear as happened to this Reddit user, who happened to be wearing the cartoon classic pink heart boxers.
