July 15, 2010 • 39 mins
James Bond, the most infamous secret agent ever to grace the silver screen, originated in the pages of British author Ian Fleming's novels. Amateur agents Josh and Chuck uncover all sorts of Bond trivia in this action-packed episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the Reinvented twenty twelve Camri. It's ready.
Are you welcome to stuff you should know from HowStuffWorks
dot Com?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Hi
with me is Charles W Chuck Bryant.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Bryant. Charles Bryant, How.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Is it going? Chuck? It's an odd way to introduce yourself, didn't.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
You think not if you're a super spy?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Are you a superspy? Actually?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I wouldn't say James Bond was even a spy secret service?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Is that a spy? Really? No, he was an assassin
and yeah, just general plot disruptor.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I would say he was a blunt instrument of the crown.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, if you wanted the job done and you couldn't
if you didn't have time to worry about you know,
the politics or you know the diplomacy, that kind of thing.
You just sent James Bond.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Yeah, get JB on the phone double seven. Yeah, he'll
he'll take care of business. Like Elvis.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
You could call him on his car phone long before
any car had a phone.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah all right, Oh yeah, he was always pre dating technology. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
As a matter of fact, there's a James Bond theory
of entrepreneurial innovation.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I believe that.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
And from Russia with Love nineteen sixty three. He talked
I can't remember who he talked to, but he was
in his car using the phone. Yeah, that was in
his car, and audiences went nuts for it.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Oh yeah, they were like, oh my god, he's on
the telephone right in a car.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
But that's what they sounded like in England though.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Oh yeah, well sure that the actually Ghana right, So Josh,
where do we start here? We can't, we can't not
start with Ian Fleming.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Ian Fleming, So where we gotta start? Let's do it? No,
that was there was a colon after that.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Oh, and I mean Colin was as everyone knows, and
if you didn't, you need to get out from under
your rock that you reside in right now. The creator
of James Bond in novel form.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
He was also originally a journalist and a stockbroker. And
World War Two starts to come around and he joins
the Naval Naval Volunteer Royal Navy, Royal Navy, and he
was actually Chuck did you know, assigned as a spy
himself in Washington, DC.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah, sort of a spy, you could call it. He
was in intelligence and he would occasionally he was an
administrative guy, but sometimes they would send him out to
do field work where he would take secret pictures of documents,
just like in the movies.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Do you know who was assigned to his spy unit.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
James Bond?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah? No, there was a guy who was the inspiration
for James Bond. His name was William Stevenson, aka Intrepid.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Right, yeah, one of many inspirations.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Right. But in an interview in The Times in nineteen
sixty two, Fleming said, you know, James Bond is this
romanticized version of a spy. Bill Stevenson is the real thing.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Right, well, in romantic version of himself.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
To an extenture, another member of that spy ring was
a guy named Roald Dahl who wrote James and the
Giant Peach and Charlie in the Chocolate Factory.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, and a bunch of body books.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
He also had the non children's books that were a
little racier. Yes, not many people know that.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
So, Chuck, let's talk a little bit more about Ian Fleming.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Give it to us, buddy, Yeah, I mean, like I said,
he was, he sort of James based James Bond on
kind of I think who he wanted to be. He
was a playboy. He was an island hopper, an adventurer,
an adventurer, a skier. He dove with Jock Custeau and
you know Snowski from the tops of mountains in Switzerland,
and had a place in Jamaica where he actually wrote
(04:08):
all these books.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Right, he named the place GoldenEye. And every year he
would go to Jamaica and write a book. And I
just want to dig him up and throttle him for that,
because I mean, what a life. Yeah, you know, yeah, Oh,
it's time for me to go to my estate in
Jamaica and write a book that's going to just make
(04:29):
me millions more.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah, which he did. And he reportedly picked the name
James Bond because he wanted the most boring name he
could find for his super secret agent. I think he
didn't want the name to compete with the actual character,
Like why bother giving him some fancy name, just shame
him James Bond and having kick.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Butt, right, you know what the opposite of that is
hex saw Jim Duggan.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yeah, he should have named him that.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, well, then it would have competed with.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
The character Duggan. Hack saw Jim Duggan. I could hear that. So, yeah,
he wrote See the article says thirteen novels.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Well, he wrote thirteen books.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
I got fourteen.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
What's the fourteenth?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Well, I've got twelve novels plus two short story collections
right for your Eyes only, and Octopusy in the Living
Daylights was another collection. Right, So it seems like it'd
be easier to find this out. But I literally saw
two different sets of information.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Huh. So are we gonna go with fourteen? Because you
are quite the sniffer, Let's.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Go with fourteenth total?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Okay, twelve novels, all right, But he wrote I think
he wrote the novels first, maybe or did he write
the short story books like in between?
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Yeah, they were in between. They were toward the end.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Okay, But so he was getting fat and lazy in Jamaica.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Yeah, interestingly though, or maybe it's not that interesting. They
made the movies way out of order.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, they did.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Doctor Now was the first, but that was the sixth novel.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Right, But did you know that they originally the people
who made the official Bond movies originally wanted to make
Thunderball Thunderball was a story that Ian Fleming came up
with with another guy who who wanted the rights to
make a movie out of it. Oh really, that fell through,
but Ian Fleming went ahead and wrote the story anyway
that they came up with as Thunderball. The guy sued
(06:24):
his pants off and actually gained custody gained the rights
to the book Thunderball, which tied it up and made
them op for Doctor Not to go first instead.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
There was a lot of litigation over the years in
the Bond franchise.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yes, there was.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I guess when you have a franchise that long and
that vast, there's going to be people suing people over something.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, plus it's a legendary he's a legendary character, and
you know he's made a lot of money for a
lot of people.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Absolutely. The other interesting thing I thought just before we
move on, was that Moonraker was written in nineteen fifty five.
That was a third novel that is insightful And of
course there wasn't a space shuttle like they changed the
setting and all that stuff, but it did involve like
a nuclear weapon, so you know, kind of odd. And
(07:10):
the Man of the Golden Gun, which was the Roger
Moore's second film was the final novel and it was
released after his death. Huh, so it was way out
of order.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
And in that one he predicted Harve Vashe, which nobody
saw coming except Ian Fleming. Yeah you know right, Yeah,
it's weird. Let's talk about James Bond.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
A little bit, the character James Bond.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So it turns out James Bond had a Scottish father,
which it didn't originally.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Now that came about because of Sean Connedy.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah. Ian Fleming was not a big fan of Sean
Connery first, and then Sean Connery is like, check this out,
and he made one peck go up while the other
went down a bunch of times, and Ian Fleming just
like clapped and squealed and that was that. Right. He
was a big fan, and he said, you know what
you are, James Bond. And he actually went back and
(08:08):
changed James Bond's history, yeah, to kind of Matt Sean
Connery a little bit because he came to see like,
this guy is Bond, right, Yeah, So he gave James
Bond a Scottish father, Andrew, and a Swiss mother Monique Delacroix,
and nice. Yeah, and they both died mountain climbing. Right.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yes, when little James was eleven years old, he went
to the orphanage, and he went to an orphanage. He
was supposedly born on November eleventh, nineteen twenty, but there
are different accounts of his birthday and when he was born.
And clearly when you have a franchise with Daniel Craig
playing him in two thousand and eight, he can't be
born in nineteen twenty.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah, because body the exhibition wasn't showing in Miami in
like nineteen fifty eight or anything.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
So yeah, there's a sliding scale there obviously to make
it viable. But James, much like his author namesake Ian Fleming,
not namesake, and James Bond, much like the author Ian Fleming, was,
went to the Royal Navy in World War Two, rose
to the rank of commander.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
After the war, that's when he entered the sis known
as m I six.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Right, which is the sixth branch of the Military Intelligence Directorate.
You got that, buddy, right, and his first two assignments chuck, Yeah,
we're two taps.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
They assassinations right off the bat, so.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
He that's apparently you have to kill two people to
get a double OW status, which is the license to kill.
And he got them, like you say, right off the bat.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, and he was the seventh dude to get him.
So that's where double O seven comes from, right, the
seventh agent. I shouldn't say dude, because they were were
their female agents. Yeah, there were female agents. Okay, I'm
pretty sure.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Uh. And we should probably take the time here to
explain I like James Bond. I know that you like
James Bond movies too.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Is this the disclaimer we're gonna get killed here?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
We are not members of James Bond fandom. I would say,
all right, I mean.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
I've seen all the movies, but no, I haven't studied
the books.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I've never read any of the books. I don't think
I've seen all the movies, but I do like them
in a very recreational manner. So that being said, we
are not going to get every single thing right here.
If we are going to walk right past information sure
that we just don't know exists, so in a very
(10:31):
friendly manner. If there is anything that you have to
say that can round this podcast out even further, the
more we love knowing new things that's so please let
us know, I guess is what we're saying.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Right. Oh, they'll let us know. They will, except for
the three dudes that just turned it off into well,
they have no business even attempting this there.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
And then they go give us a one star rating
on iTunes.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
So back to Bond. He as we all know as
a sharp dresser, and he loves fast cars, he loves
his more martini shaking that stirred. He loves women.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah. And do you know if you shake a Martine
instead of stirring it, you pretty much ruin it.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I disagree. I shake all my martinis. Dude, how does
it ruin it?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
It feathers it?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
I think, what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
It means it's screwed up. What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (11:19):
I like a good dirty Martini myself.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Oh you like him dirty?
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Oh? Yeah, gross, I said word.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I like my Martini's so light. It's basically the savodk rock.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
So you just like the remooth bottle, Just wave near
the glass pretty much. I like just a little vermooth,
little olive juice, but no olive.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
No olive juice. I'll put in all. I'll put three
olives in usually. Really all right, but then I eat
them so fast that they have no time to taint
the Martini.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Well that's why you're not a super spy. So Josh
James Bond a couple of the other traits we should
just mention. He is a martial artist. He's a gifted
man with his fist and feet. Or if you're Roger Moore,
a Roddy chop yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that was a
big deal in the seventies. And he carried a famously
(12:09):
carried a Walter PPK handgun thirty two caliber. Yeah, and
that's the little guy. Have you ever seen him? Oh yeah,
they're small.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
And I've played Golden nine, played best game. Yeah, just
played Golden nine. It is a great game.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yeah, and you know they're bringing that back for we
I've heard Matt Frederick of coolelt Stuff on the Planet
told us that they are bringing that back because it's
still sort of the standard for first person shooters like
fifteen years on. Yeah, it's still a great game. So
they're bringing it back as is, like completely as it was,
but with better graphics.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
That's going to be fantastic for the Wii.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, pretty exciting. Back to the real life of the
fake Life of James Bond.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
That's how we should have titled this podcast.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
The Real Life of the Fake Life. Yeah, how about uh,
let's talk about some of the enemies.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Doctor No. He was the first one to appear in the.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Films, Doctor Julius, now.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Right, he's an atomic scientist.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Yeah, he was, clearly. Joseph Wiseman played him, and he
was a great, great villain Goldfinger. You can't talk about
Bond without talking about Goldfinger. Yeah he was. You don't
like him, no, no, really, that was a big Goldfinger guy.
He tried to laser the crotch of James Bond.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Oh yeah, that's right, pretty hardcore. It's like Max Scorpio
in that Simpsons where oh yeah, up, going to work
for the super villain, right, yeah, he's like, no, mister Bond,
I expect you to die and be a very cheap funeral.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Odd Job was one of my favorite, and he was
one of Goldman's henchmen in the big Asian guy with
the bowler hat that he could cut like the head
off a statue his hat. Huge, Yeah, very big dude. Jaws.
We grew up with Roger Moore, so you can't not
talk about Jaws.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
No, he was great too. He was in two of them, right,
he was in Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved Me.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
I thought he might have been more than that, but
he definitely.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
I looked it up.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
He was only in two two Really, I made quite
an impression.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, he did.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
He found the girlfriend in moon Breaker, I think, right, falls.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
In love or something.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Yeah, the little like nerdy girl.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And then he pops up again in Happy Gilmore. Was
he in that?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Yeah? I didn't see that.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, he was Happy Gilmour's boss, like on the construction
site and ends up becoming a fan.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
And wow, did he have the teeth?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
No, he didn't have the piece for the movie, but
he was a big guy.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Lately we've had more recent villains that I don't think
the new villains compare personally.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
No, they kind of come and go. You know, there's
like in Casino Royale.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah, I mean they're okay, but they're all the villain
was Yeah that that Like, they're all decent, but they're
not like iconic characters like they used to be. Right like, Yeah, Well,
Blofeld was the sort of legendary I don't know how
many movies he was in, but He was played by
like tell Donald Pleasance. Yeah, Donald Pleasants was my favorite version.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
He was good.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
And Max van Seado played him, I think, and uh,
never say never again.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Maybe Max, he's a class act.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah, I was, what did I watch the other day? Oh,
Shutter Island. He's in that. And I told lean over
to Emily. I was like, you know, I want to
see Max van Seadel play like a kindly grandfather in
a movie. I don't think anytime that dude pops up
in the movie, you're like, oh, well, he's the evil doer.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
He's the villain, or so you think until Shutter Island
falls apart at the end.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Don't ruin it. So yes, that was Blofeld. He was
the bald guy and he was the head of Specter,
which was the Special executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion.
That's a great villainoist title there.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
That's not only like a great name, that's your mission statement. Yeah,
you know, all wrapped up in the one one of
my favorites, Max Zorin, played by the great Christopher Walkin.
He was he was the I know you love that movie,
one of the best bomb movies ever.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
But that had the worst bond woman ever, Grace Jones. No,
Tanya Roberts, I don't remember her. She was the bond girl.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I don't remember.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
She was the lady from the seventies show that was
like one of the late Charlie's Angels replacements. Tanya Roberts.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, yeah, who cares. It was the eighties, nobody was
paying that much attention.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
But it was a good song.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
It was and Christopher Walkin was in it. Grace Jones
was in it.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
She was pretty scary in that.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, she was excellent. Talk about a martial artist. But
Max zorin Is did you know he was the product
of genetic experiments by Nazis. Walking was well not walking?
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't remember that.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah. And one of the unintended side effects was he
was a complete psychopath.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I thought you were gonna say one of the side
effects was his use of punctuation. You were, good man.
Everybody does walking.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I can't do it walking.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Let's hear it.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
My No, it's really just an altered John Travolta, Why
you so weird, dude? That's great, of course, Chuck, there's
double six Alec Trevlyn.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah, what was he? And that was one of the
Pierce Broson ones, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah? I think yeah, it's I don't remember those. I
love Pierce Brosnon, like, oh he was good. The fact that,
like he wasn't James Bond earlier. He's like, oh yeah,
you're gonna cast Timothy Dalton, are you well, I'll go
beat Remington Steel jerks.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah, And then they tried to get him again, right,
I think so, And he was committed to Remington Steele,
which was sort of like James Bond for TV.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Oh so did he do Remington Steel first?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Oh? Yeah, he did Remington Steele. Well, it goes back
and forth. There was like Timothy Dalton was offered the
role before Roger Moore. Did you know that? No, I didn't.
When he was twenty one years old. Really he was
gonna replace Sean Connery. Well, and Dalton said I'm too
young to play James Bond. And then he comes around
years later just like just like uh, Brosnon did.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Okay, But I am glad that Pierce Broson went in.
I just happened to think that those his period of
movies were unfortunate.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
I thought they were pretty good.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
I didn't like them now I'm really happy with Daniel
craigs stuff so far.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Well, you know my statement on that is that was
the only direction they could take that franchise after the
Jason Bourne movies. You couldn't have a guy like winking
at the camera like Roger Moore and like slapstick sounds
and sound effects. You had to take him into like
a real bad, bad direction.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yes, you mean, like sim Ohaya bad. Yeah, So Double
six Alec Trevlyn, he is. I think he informs the
character Alex Krychek from X Files.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
You think so?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Huh?
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Sure, very nice, Josh.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
All right, So those are some of the villains, clearly,
not all, but we should also talk about some of
the people that James Bond had working on his side
at m I six.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
All right, we will call from here on out the
superfluous characters.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
No, dude, they're great. M Q M was the head
of m I six and there were several ms. It
was just a title and m was the one that's
always frustrated with Bond. Yet he knows that he's the
blunt instrument of choice. You know, pretty much in every movie,
r Q.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
You should say he or she for m true Dame
Judy Dench took over.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah. Man, she's doing a great job too. Q is
the head of the Q branch.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Judy Dench, did you hear that? Chuck just said you
were doing a great job, So keep it up.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Keep it up. Danger. Dame Dame, Dame Dame, Yeah, she's
a dame. Q is the head of the Q branch.
M I six is research and development branch, and Q,
as you might know, is the guy who in all
the films gives James his gadgets. There's always that great
scene where James goes into the laboratory and starts messing
(19:58):
around with the gadgets and exasperates Q because he's burning
something or he's firing a missile inside and he shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
That's Q, right, And he's now been replaced by his
former assistant R.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Right now is R John Clees. Yeah, yeah, he's doing
a good job. But he's the new Q. He just
used to be R well because Q died right Llewellen, Yes, Chuck,
that was the actor that played the original Q.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Or the Roger more Key that I loved?
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Right?
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Who else we got?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Felix Leer who I like Jack Lord Jeffrey Wright both
played him agent. And there's another guy named Hayward Wade.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Was he Cia?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
I thought they said they didn't know if he was
Dea or Cia.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
He was around before the Dea was was he Yeah?
And then you've got I think Jack Wade is his name.
And he was actually played by a couple of people,
including Joe Don Baker. Oh yeah, Pere's Brosnan Ones.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Yeah. Yeah, he had a couple of American counterparts. It's
a good point and.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Little known fact. Jo Don Baker was in Oh, I
can't remember the name of the movie, but it was
one of the greatest Mister Science Theater three thousands.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Really yeah, bad movie. And then of course we have
to mention Moneypenny. He was M's personal assistant and Moneypenny.
You always knew Moneypenny because James would come in and
flirt very much with her, and I always got the
sense that if James were to ever settle down with anyone,
which he clearly won't, it would have been Moneypenny sure,
(21:29):
or at least he made her think that. Right. Every
day was Secretary's day when James Bond was around. He
was always just so nice to her, bringing her things
from his travels, shot glasses and stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Right, spoons, She had an extensive spoon collection, refrigerator, magnets, Chuck, Josh,
let's talk about the movie show. Yeah, sure, well let's
talk about James Bond on screen because it wasn't necessarily
just relegated to the movies.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Oh yeah, good point.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
So James Bond first appears on screen on the small
screen on a CBS TV series called Climax with an
exclamation point really yeah wow, And he was first played
by a guy named Barry Nelson. Barry Nelson you may
recognize as mister Olman, the manager of the Overlook in
(22:16):
Kubrick's The Shining who tells Jack Torres the ropes. That's
the first guy to ever play James Bond.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Wow? Was he English?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
No?
Speaker 3 (22:24):
American?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yes, CBS TV series.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
So we've had a Scotsman's quite a few Englishmen, an
American and an Australian.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
And what what do you mean Australian?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
I mean someone from Australia. That was George Lazamy was Australian?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Was it? You know what happened to him?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Well, he wasn't much of an actor.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Well, it wasn't just that he after the success of
his Bond movie. I mean he played James Bond and
it was you know, filmed and produced.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
And released on Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Right, he was like, Holy Colm, James Bond, and I'm
going to buy a boat and sail around the world
for a while. And he came back and his star
had already faded because he did one thing and that
was that. Oh really, yeah, he kind of blew it.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
He wasn't much of an actor either.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
It wasn't but it wasn't just that. It was Yeah,
it was a combination of those two things.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
He was a bad dude though, Like he he got
the role apparently because he impressed Ian Fleming because he
had a faux fight scene with a wrestler for his
audition and he actually punched the guy, like got mad
and punched him, and Fleming's like, this is hard, dude. Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, because Fleming wrote the Bond character is much darker.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, the novel character for sure, Like.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Roger Moore took it in a very awful direction, pacific direction.
You know that was not the least bit like how
Ian Fleming had written them.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
You're the ultimate Roger Moore apologist. I love he's good
in The Saint and that's why I got the role,
I think. Okay, the TV show The.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Saint, all right, So Chuck, let's get back to the
beginning again. So we talked about Barry Nelson and on
the big screen, the first Bond ever was Sean Connery.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Right, yeah, well they did. They did a pilot though
on TV as well.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
That's the Barry Nelson one.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Oh, it was called Casino Royale though.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
No, right, it was based on Casino Royal or Gotcha Climax, okay,
which I think. You know how they used to do,
like they would have the name of the series, but
then there'd be like different like like Wonderful World of Disney. Yeah,
it was like the name of the series, but then
there were different like documentaries or gotcha tunes or whatever.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Okay, I think it was like that, and that flopped.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
And I didn't know what they were doing with TV
back in the day.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
They had no idea. So yeah, you're right, Doctor I
was the first film in nineteen sixty two and there's
been twenty two in total. No, yes, and we're waiting,
and that's official Bond films. Because they parodied him and
other things. What he Allen played him for Heaven's sake.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah, yeah, and in the parody he did of Casino Royale.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
There's also a an unofficial Bond film with an official Bond, right,
let's hear it, Never Say Never Again.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Yeah, that was Connrie's that was also fraught with the lawsuits.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
You know, that was based on the Thunderball lawsuit.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Yeah, they remade Thunderball, right, and they named.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
It Never Say Never Again because Conrie had said after
nineteen seventy one that he'd never play Bond again because
he played Bond what for the first like six movies
something like that, one, two.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Three, four, five, and then George Lazenby then he came
back and did Diamonds or Forever.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
And then after that came Roger Moore. Yes, and then
Roger Moore had a pretty good run. So Sean Connery
stops playing Bond. George Lazenby comes along, does it once leaves,
Sean Connery has to come back another time. After Sean Connery,
they get Roger Moore. In the midst of Roger Moore's run,
(25:50):
Sean Connery makes another Bond film, That's The Kid. Twelve
years after the last one he'd made.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Yeah, right, and yeah, Ken Beasinger was the bonche and
that one she was.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
And they called it never Say Never Again because he'd
said that he would never play Bond again.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Never Trebek, That's what he said, right, Timothy Dalton, I
guess we might as well venture into his years.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah. I saw those when they first came out, like
in the theaters, and I didn't think anything of them.
I don't know if they were over my head or whatever,
but I didn't like them.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
They were pretty good living daylights and licensed to kill.
They were both.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Are they good? Really?
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Yeah? I mean they were. It was definitely a more
novelistic Bond, like he was darker and a little more
bad dude, and that, I mean it might have had
something to do with it was coming off the heels
of Roger Moore in his vaudeville act that he brought
to Bond and Dalton had a two picture run and
then was replaced by who everyone thought should have been
Bond before Dalton, Pierce Brosnan for one, two, three, four films, right,
(26:49):
and then they went the inevitable direction with a blonde
Bond with Daniel Craig. Is that inevitable, you think, well,
I meant the inevitable way of making him a tough dude.
But yeah, his blindness was not inevitable. You know.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
You make fun of Roger Moore, but he had a
seven picture stint as James Bond.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Yeah, I mean, and that was our childhood, trust me, dude.
At the time, I loved it. But then when I
got older, I revisited all of the Sean Conneries, and
then I saw the butt kickingness of Timothy Dalton and
now Daniel Craig, And now I'm kind of like Roger
World was kind of a joke to me. No, you
still stand by it, I do, all right.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
I like Roger Moore.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Sam Neil was considered at one point.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
I could see him as James Bond.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
He would have been mad.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
He was great and dead calm.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah, that was a good movie.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
You know, I don't know that this even qualifies as
a podcast.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
People can be like you guys are just kind of
chit chatting, schuck.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
There's also theories, tons of them. Best one, actually, the
only one I could find really is the code name Theories.
Have you heard this? I have not cracked. I got
a lot of publicity for it by. It's a fan
theory that basically says, James Bond is a it's a
name that goes along with double O seven, and there's
(28:10):
each actor was playing an actual different person who had
assumed this undercover name James Bond. Really, which explains the
changes in personality. Yeah, it explains why Sean Connery was
so suave and Roger Moore was so goofy. Sure, it
explains why Daniel Craig and Timothy Dalton were so violent.
(28:31):
It explains a lot of stuff. Actually explains George Lazenby's
departure because his wife, the only time James Bond has
ever been married, died in that one honor her Majesty's
Secret Service.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yeah, he had a wife most people don't know, and
she was.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Killed by Blofeld. Right, so he leaves after that. That
explains that, right, absolutely. There's actually holes in that theory.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Do you know them?
Speaker 2 (28:55):
I know a couple like, for example, George Lazenbee recognized
gadgets that were debuted during Sean Connery's tenure. He was
a new person. He would it would be new to him.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
He'd be like, what's his start gun?
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Right, exactly right. And I think The Spy who Loved
Me Roger Moore is recognized from his college days at
Cambridge as James Bond, which would mean that he was
using the name before then. But it's still a pretty
cool theory. If you want any cool theory shot down,
I recommend you go to Commander Bond dot net, am
(29:29):
I six dot co dot uk or James Bondwiki dot
com as are some good sites.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
I'm gonna retrack my Roger Moore bashing a little bit.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
I actually liked like four out of seven of his films.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Okay, see, so you're right.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I forget sometimes I forget about the awesomeness of Live
and Let Die and Man with a Golden Gun for
Your Eyes Only. Those were all pretty good. It was
like octopusy Moonraker was really silly, does not age well
at all. And if you do a kill, I just
can't get behind him.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
You do a kill is awesome. What about The Spy
who Loved Me? That's the one with the Greater Water lotus?
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Yeah yeah, great, great movie.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
And I have one last fact. Are you ready?
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
The legendary Bond producer co producer Albert cubby broccoli. Yeah,
his family invented broccoli. They crossed cauliflower with rabe and
invented broccoli. And he actually left the family farm to
go to Hollywood to pursue his fortune when he was.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Like eighteen, are you making this? I am not. He
invented broccoli.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
His family did his like parents, grandparents.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
That's a pretty good fact.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Broccoley.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Very cool. Good for him. They're in trouble now though,
because MGM is in trouble.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah, but they're saying like it's just a blip on
the radar. If you listen to any anybuddy who's attached
to the Bond twenty three.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Oh, it'll happen at some point.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
But they're like this, it's fine.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Yeah, it's being delayed big time though, because MGM's and
over their heads financially.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
If you know anything about MGM, if you're an insider
at MGM, we want to hear from you. Let us
know what's going on with Bond.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
That's funny, we should. We got to talk about Bond girls.
That's one of the hallmarks of Bond films, and usually
there's two Bond girls at least there's like a hot
villain and like a hot an aid that helps him
out in some way. Sometimes she turns out to be
a villain. But there's usually two Bond girls and he's
(31:22):
equally attracted to both.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Like Grace Jones.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah, he's attracted to her for some reason. They are
fem fatales. Like I said, Bond cannot help but fall
for them, even though they it might mean he has
to eventually kill them after he makes sweet love to them. Right,
And I'm gonna go ahead and ask you what your
favorite Bond girl is.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
I just recently realized that Carrie Lowell was a Bond
girl and I used to have the biggest crush on
her when I would watch Wild Record No Law and
Order reruns on A. Yeah, they used to show like
Law and Order for like eight hour blocks on A
and E, and I'd be like, I'm not going to
(32:05):
class today, I'm just gonna watch Law and Order. And
she was on a lot of them. Yeah, she she
would be my favorite Bond girl.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
I'm going with Ursula Andres. Yeah, she was hot dude
back in the day. She played honey Rider. And that's
another hallmark of the Bond women is they usually had
really awful names that hinted it sexual innu window, Yeah,
you know, plenty o Tool, Honey Rider, pussy Galore, actually Solitaire,
(32:35):
Jane Seymour. She was pretty good in Living Let Die
like that. She was actually a really good actor, Okay.
Moonraker of course had a Holly gooodhead and a view
to a kill. I had Tanya Rhart's as Stacy Sutton.
They didn't even give her a cool name.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
So, Chuck, what's the best Bond theme song? Well, let
me take a wild guess.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
I'm gonna say Live and Let Die is probably my favorite.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Because I would have put the thousand dollars on that.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Or what's her name? Carly Simon spy who loved me?
Nobody does it better? Love that song?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Best fond theme song if it's not You Kill, Okay,
if it's not that, it is Nancy Sinatra singing You
Only Live Twice?
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yeah, that was awesome. Yes it was Shirley Bassie. Just
another little factoid.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
She did.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
No, she did more than that. She did a gold Finger,
she did Diamonds or Forever, she did Moon Raker, Moon
Raker's that's three total. I was also a big fan
of she and a Easton's For Your eyes Only, Yes,
she did and read a Coolidge all time high from Octopussy.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Didn't Tom Jones do Thunderball or something?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
He did?
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:50):
He did Thunderball. And since we're talking about the songs
that have really gotten lame in recent years, like the
Chris Cornellen and Garbage, you probably didn't even remember they
did songs.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Garbage did the one for World is Not Enough?
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Oh okay, Pierce Brosnan, Yeah, and Sheryl Crowe did one,
did she really?
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (34:12):
And Madonna did one and and now it's gotten to
the point where they're just like, like the last one,
they put Jack White with Alicia Keys.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Up next is Miley Cyrus. Oh God, say it ain't
so Bond twenty three?
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Uh, what else do we have here?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
This is the podcast that won't die. No, I do
have this Like James Bond, it just goes on.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
I do have a couple more facts. Okay, Well, first
of all, before you move on, if we're going to
talk about the songs, we need to talk about the
opening sequences, the title sequences. When you're a young Baptist
boy and there are naked, silhouetted women jumping on trampolines, Yeah,
it's very titillating and arousing and arousing for a young
boy named Chuck.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
I'm titillated and aroused.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
And then the opening sequence of the films typically is
some awesome action scene, and then the title sequence comes up.
There'll be like a seven minute action scene.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Right. They call it a cold opening, Buddy.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
A cold opening.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
That's very nice. And I just got a couple of
more facts for you, Josh, and then I'll let you
put this to bed all right with what would you
say is the highest grossing Bond film of all time
adjusted gross adjusted gross?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I would say Casino Royale No.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Top two all time Thunderball and gold Finger. You're a
liar adjusted gross, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Casino Royale worldwide netted like almost six hundred million dollars
so far.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
A bunch of money. Thunderball and Goldfinger did more, did
they really?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Thunderball and nineteen sixty five dude, gross to one hundred
and forty one million dollars?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
What and is that worldwide or US?
Speaker 3 (35:45):
That's worldwide? And that is close to what Licensed to
Kill gross in nineteen eighty nine, that grows like one
hundred and fifty something. And Thunderball you know, thirty years
more grossed one hundred and forty.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
One million, right, But what I'm saying is Casino Royale
gross six hundred million.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Well, I mean, yeah, that's not an adjusted gross though you.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Can't compare, you're figuring inflation.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yeah, that's what it's called an adjusted gross. And that's
about it. I mean, we could say the cars he
used real quickly, the Aston Martin obviously, my favorite is
the Lotus, The Lotus, the Alpha Romeo, and then that
new Audi. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Do you like the Audi?
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Yeah, it looks awesome, Okay, but I do miss the
Lotus and the fact that it could also be a submarine. Right.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
And lastly, Chuck, I would like to say to all
the kids of our generation, if you ever noticed the
similarity between Inspector Gadget and James Bond, you were dead on.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Yeah you think so?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah? All right, So that's about it. If you want
to know more about James Bond, Like I said, there
are three, at least three really good websites for all
things Bond fans, you can check out our website by
taping James Bond brings up a bunch of stuff in
the handy search bar and now, if you can believe it,
(37:10):
it is time for listener mail.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Yes, Josh, I'm gonna call this samurai stuff from Thomas Guys.
I'm a total samurai geek. I practiced Japanese sword based
martial arts kindo and ayido. I've read all this material
about samurai and your podcast was a very good introduction,
and I thank you for it. However, I am kind
of surprised you did not mention the greatest Samurai of
all time, Miyamoto Musashi. This guy was the epitome of
(37:37):
everything samurai were supposed to be. A dedicated soyvant, a poet,
a painter, a calligrapher, philosopher, a general, and an all
round butt kicking killer. Not only did he write the
Book of Five Rings, he also killed sixty men in
single combat before age forty, not to mention all the
guys he killed in warfare. At one point in your
podcast you talked about the wooden katana called kung in Japanese. Yes,
(38:02):
it was a practice sword, Josh, but it was also
a weapon in its own right. Because Japan is such
a wet climate, swords were sometimes destroyed by rust. Bucan
were cheap and easy to replace, and Musashi was famous
for winning some of his greatest battles with the wooden sword.
Ow I know, can you imagine.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Dude ow Go being smacked to death?
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Well, he says instead of cutting someone's heads off, he
would brain them, which I guess means like you crack
their skull, yeah, until their brains come out. Also, he
was a big fan of using two swords at one time,
sometimes two katana, sometimes the short and the long. Whatever
it took to do the job. You guys, Rocket love
your show. I'm grateful for the Samurai show from Thomas.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Well, thank you Thomas for the extra information. As I said,
we are always interested in knowing everything we possibly can
about a subject. So if you have anything to tell
us about James Bond that we missed, that we got wrong,
that we need to know, we want to hear it,
wrap it up and send it in any don't forget
to spank it on a bottom and maybe serve it
a dry martini shaken not stirred. Address it too. Stuff
(39:09):
podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com. Want more house stuff works, check out
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Brought to you by the Reinvented twenty twelve Camri. It's ready.
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dot Com?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Hi
with me is Charles W Chuck Bryant.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Bryant. Charles Bryant, How.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Is it going? Chuck? It's an odd way to introduce yourself, didn't.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
You think not if you're a super spy?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Are you a superspy? Actually?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I wouldn't say James Bond was even a spy secret service?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Is that a spy? Really? No, he was an assassin
and yeah, just general plot disruptor.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I would say he was a blunt instrument of the crown.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, if you wanted the job done and you couldn't
if you didn't have time to worry about you know,
the politics or you know the diplomacy, that kind of thing.
You just sent James Bond.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Yeah, get JB on the phone double seven. Yeah, he'll
he'll take care of business. Like Elvis.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
You could call him on his car phone long before
any car had a phone.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah all right, Oh yeah, he was always pre dating technology. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
As a matter of fact, there's a James Bond theory
of entrepreneurial innovation.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I believe that.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
And from Russia with Love nineteen sixty three. He talked
I can't remember who he talked to, but he was
in his car using the phone. Yeah, that was in
his car, and audiences went nuts for it.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Oh yeah, they were like, oh my god, he's on
the telephone right in a car.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
But that's what they sounded like in England though.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Oh yeah, well sure that the actually Ghana right, So Josh,
where do we start here? We can't, we can't not
start with Ian Fleming.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Ian Fleming, So where we gotta start? Let's do it? No,
that was there was a colon after that.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Oh, and I mean Colin was as everyone knows, and
if you didn't, you need to get out from under
your rock that you reside in right now. The creator
of James Bond in novel form.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
He was also originally a journalist and a stockbroker. And
World War Two starts to come around and he joins
the Naval Naval Volunteer Royal Navy, Royal Navy, and he
was actually Chuck did you know, assigned as a spy
himself in Washington, DC.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah, sort of a spy, you could call it. He
was in intelligence and he would occasionally he was an
administrative guy, but sometimes they would send him out to
do field work where he would take secret pictures of documents,
just like in the movies.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Do you know who was assigned to his spy unit.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
James Bond?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah? No, there was a guy who was the inspiration
for James Bond. His name was William Stevenson, aka Intrepid.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Right, yeah, one of many inspirations.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Right. But in an interview in The Times in nineteen
sixty two, Fleming said, you know, James Bond is this
romanticized version of a spy. Bill Stevenson is the real thing.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Right, well, in romantic version of himself.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
To an extenture, another member of that spy ring was
a guy named Roald Dahl who wrote James and the
Giant Peach and Charlie in the Chocolate Factory.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, and a bunch of body books.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
He also had the non children's books that were a
little racier. Yes, not many people know that.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
So, Chuck, let's talk a little bit more about Ian Fleming.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Give it to us, buddy, Yeah, I mean, like I said,
he was, he sort of James based James Bond on
kind of I think who he wanted to be. He
was a playboy. He was an island hopper, an adventurer,
an adventurer, a skier. He dove with Jock Custeau and
you know Snowski from the tops of mountains in Switzerland,
and had a place in Jamaica where he actually wrote
(04:08):
all these books.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Right, he named the place GoldenEye. And every year he
would go to Jamaica and write a book. And I
just want to dig him up and throttle him for that,
because I mean, what a life. Yeah, you know, yeah, Oh,
it's time for me to go to my estate in
Jamaica and write a book that's going to just make
(04:29):
me millions more.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah, which he did. And he reportedly picked the name
James Bond because he wanted the most boring name he
could find for his super secret agent. I think he
didn't want the name to compete with the actual character,
Like why bother giving him some fancy name, just shame
him James Bond and having kick.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Butt, right, you know what the opposite of that is
hex saw Jim Duggan.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yeah, he should have named him that.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, well, then it would have competed with.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
The character Duggan. Hack saw Jim Duggan. I could hear that. So, yeah,
he wrote See the article says thirteen novels.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Well, he wrote thirteen books.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
I got fourteen.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
What's the fourteenth?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Well, I've got twelve novels plus two short story collections
right for your Eyes only, and Octopusy in the Living
Daylights was another collection. Right, So it seems like it'd
be easier to find this out. But I literally saw
two different sets of information.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Huh. So are we gonna go with fourteen? Because you
are quite the sniffer, Let's.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Go with fourteenth total?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Okay, twelve novels, all right, But he wrote I think
he wrote the novels first, maybe or did he write
the short story books like in between?
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Yeah, they were in between. They were toward the end.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Okay, But so he was getting fat and lazy in Jamaica.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Yeah, interestingly though, or maybe it's not that interesting. They
made the movies way out of order.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, they did.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Doctor Now was the first, but that was the sixth novel.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Right, But did you know that they originally the people
who made the official Bond movies originally wanted to make
Thunderball Thunderball was a story that Ian Fleming came up
with with another guy who who wanted the rights to
make a movie out of it. Oh really, that fell through,
but Ian Fleming went ahead and wrote the story anyway
that they came up with as Thunderball. The guy sued
(06:24):
his pants off and actually gained custody gained the rights
to the book Thunderball, which tied it up and made
them op for Doctor Not to go first instead.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
There was a lot of litigation over the years in
the Bond franchise.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yes, there was.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I guess when you have a franchise that long and
that vast, there's going to be people suing people over something.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, plus it's a legendary he's a legendary character, and
you know he's made a lot of money for a
lot of people.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Absolutely. The other interesting thing I thought just before we
move on, was that Moonraker was written in nineteen fifty five.
That was a third novel that is insightful And of
course there wasn't a space shuttle like they changed the
setting and all that stuff, but it did involve like
a nuclear weapon, so you know, kind of odd. And
(07:10):
the Man of the Golden Gun, which was the Roger
Moore's second film was the final novel and it was
released after his death. Huh, so it was way out
of order.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
And in that one he predicted Harve Vashe, which nobody
saw coming except Ian Fleming. Yeah you know right, Yeah,
it's weird. Let's talk about James Bond.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
A little bit, the character James Bond.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So it turns out James Bond had a Scottish father,
which it didn't originally.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Now that came about because of Sean Connedy.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah. Ian Fleming was not a big fan of Sean
Connery first, and then Sean Connery is like, check this out,
and he made one peck go up while the other
went down a bunch of times, and Ian Fleming just
like clapped and squealed and that was that. Right. He
was a big fan, and he said, you know what
you are, James Bond. And he actually went back and
(08:08):
changed James Bond's history, yeah, to kind of Matt Sean
Connery a little bit because he came to see like,
this guy is Bond, right, Yeah, So he gave James
Bond a Scottish father, Andrew, and a Swiss mother Monique Delacroix,
and nice. Yeah, and they both died mountain climbing. Right.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yes, when little James was eleven years old, he went
to the orphanage, and he went to an orphanage. He
was supposedly born on November eleventh, nineteen twenty, but there
are different accounts of his birthday and when he was born.
And clearly when you have a franchise with Daniel Craig
playing him in two thousand and eight, he can't be
born in nineteen twenty.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah, because body the exhibition wasn't showing in Miami in
like nineteen fifty eight or anything.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
So yeah, there's a sliding scale there obviously to make
it viable. But James, much like his author namesake Ian Fleming,
not namesake, and James Bond, much like the author Ian Fleming, was,
went to the Royal Navy in World War Two, rose
to the rank of commander.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
After the war, that's when he entered the sis known
as m I six.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Right, which is the sixth branch of the Military Intelligence Directorate.
You got that, buddy, right, and his first two assignments chuck, Yeah,
we're two taps.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
They assassinations right off the bat, so.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
He that's apparently you have to kill two people to
get a double OW status, which is the license to kill.
And he got them, like you say, right off the bat.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, and he was the seventh dude to get him.
So that's where double O seven comes from, right, the
seventh agent. I shouldn't say dude, because they were were
their female agents. Yeah, there were female agents. Okay, I'm
pretty sure.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Uh. And we should probably take the time here to
explain I like James Bond. I know that you like
James Bond movies too.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Is this the disclaimer we're gonna get killed here?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
We are not members of James Bond fandom. I would say,
all right, I mean.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
I've seen all the movies, but no, I haven't studied
the books.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I've never read any of the books. I don't think
I've seen all the movies, but I do like them
in a very recreational manner. So that being said, we
are not going to get every single thing right here.
If we are going to walk right past information sure
that we just don't know exists, so in a very
(10:31):
friendly manner. If there is anything that you have to
say that can round this podcast out even further, the
more we love knowing new things that's so please let
us know, I guess is what we're saying.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Right. Oh, they'll let us know. They will, except for
the three dudes that just turned it off into well,
they have no business even attempting this there.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
And then they go give us a one star rating
on iTunes.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
So back to Bond. He as we all know as
a sharp dresser, and he loves fast cars, he loves
his more martini shaking that stirred. He loves women.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah. And do you know if you shake a Martine
instead of stirring it, you pretty much ruin it.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I disagree. I shake all my martinis. Dude, how does
it ruin it?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
It feathers it?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
I think, what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
It means it's screwed up. What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (11:19):
I like a good dirty Martini myself.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Oh you like him dirty?
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Oh? Yeah, gross, I said word.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I like my Martini's so light. It's basically the savodk rock.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
So you just like the remooth bottle, Just wave near
the glass pretty much. I like just a little vermooth,
little olive juice, but no olive.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
No olive juice. I'll put in all. I'll put three
olives in usually. Really all right, but then I eat
them so fast that they have no time to taint
the Martini.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Well that's why you're not a super spy. So Josh
James Bond a couple of the other traits we should
just mention. He is a martial artist. He's a gifted
man with his fist and feet. Or if you're Roger Moore,
a Roddy chop yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that was a
big deal in the seventies. And he carried a famously
(12:09):
carried a Walter PPK handgun thirty two caliber. Yeah, and
that's the little guy. Have you ever seen him? Oh yeah,
they're small.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
And I've played Golden nine, played best game. Yeah, just
played Golden nine. It is a great game.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yeah, and you know they're bringing that back for we
I've heard Matt Frederick of coolelt Stuff on the Planet
told us that they are bringing that back because it's
still sort of the standard for first person shooters like
fifteen years on. Yeah, it's still a great game. So
they're bringing it back as is, like completely as it was,
but with better graphics.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
That's going to be fantastic for the Wii.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, pretty exciting. Back to the real life of the
fake Life of James Bond.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
That's how we should have titled this podcast.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
The Real Life of the Fake Life. Yeah, how about uh,
let's talk about some of the enemies.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Doctor No. He was the first one to appear in the.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Films, Doctor Julius, now.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Right, he's an atomic scientist.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Yeah, he was, clearly. Joseph Wiseman played him, and he
was a great, great villain Goldfinger. You can't talk about
Bond without talking about Goldfinger. Yeah he was. You don't
like him, no, no, really, that was a big Goldfinger guy.
He tried to laser the crotch of James Bond.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Oh yeah, that's right, pretty hardcore. It's like Max Scorpio
in that Simpsons where oh yeah, up, going to work
for the super villain, right, yeah, he's like, no, mister Bond,
I expect you to die and be a very cheap funeral.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Odd Job was one of my favorite, and he was
one of Goldman's henchmen in the big Asian guy with
the bowler hat that he could cut like the head
off a statue his hat. Huge, Yeah, very big dude. Jaws.
We grew up with Roger Moore, so you can't not
talk about Jaws.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
No, he was great too. He was in two of them, right,
he was in Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved Me.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
I thought he might have been more than that, but
he definitely.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
I looked it up.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
He was only in two two Really, I made quite
an impression.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, he did.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
He found the girlfriend in moon Breaker, I think, right, falls.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
In love or something.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Yeah, the little like nerdy girl.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And then he pops up again in Happy Gilmore. Was
he in that?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Yeah? I didn't see that.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, he was Happy Gilmour's boss, like on the construction
site and ends up becoming a fan.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
And wow, did he have the teeth?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
No, he didn't have the piece for the movie, but
he was a big guy.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Lately we've had more recent villains that I don't think
the new villains compare personally.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
No, they kind of come and go. You know, there's
like in Casino Royale.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah, I mean they're okay, but they're all the villain
was Yeah that that Like, they're all decent, but they're
not like iconic characters like they used to be. Right like, Yeah, Well,
Blofeld was the sort of legendary I don't know how
many movies he was in, but He was played by
like tell Donald Pleasance. Yeah, Donald Pleasants was my favorite version.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
He was good.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
And Max van Seado played him, I think, and uh,
never say never again.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Maybe Max, he's a class act.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah, I was, what did I watch the other day? Oh,
Shutter Island. He's in that. And I told lean over
to Emily. I was like, you know, I want to
see Max van Seadel play like a kindly grandfather in
a movie. I don't think anytime that dude pops up
in the movie, you're like, oh, well, he's the evil doer.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
He's the villain, or so you think until Shutter Island
falls apart at the end.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Don't ruin it. So yes, that was Blofeld. He was
the bald guy and he was the head of Specter,
which was the Special executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion.
That's a great villainoist title there.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
That's not only like a great name, that's your mission statement. Yeah,
you know, all wrapped up in the one one of
my favorites, Max Zorin, played by the great Christopher Walkin.
He was he was the I know you love that movie,
one of the best bomb movies ever.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
But that had the worst bond woman ever, Grace Jones. No,
Tanya Roberts, I don't remember her. She was the bond girl.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I don't remember.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
She was the lady from the seventies show that was
like one of the late Charlie's Angels replacements. Tanya Roberts.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, yeah, who cares. It was the eighties, nobody was
paying that much attention.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
But it was a good song.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
It was and Christopher Walkin was in it. Grace Jones
was in it.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
She was pretty scary in that.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, she was excellent. Talk about a martial artist. But
Max zorin Is did you know he was the product
of genetic experiments by Nazis. Walking was well not walking?
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't remember that.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah. And one of the unintended side effects was he
was a complete psychopath.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I thought you were gonna say one of the side
effects was his use of punctuation. You were, good man.
Everybody does walking.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I can't do it walking.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Let's hear it.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
My No, it's really just an altered John Travolta, Why
you so weird, dude? That's great, of course, Chuck, there's
double six Alec Trevlyn.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah, what was he? And that was one of the
Pierce Broson ones, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah? I think yeah, it's I don't remember those. I
love Pierce Brosnon, like, oh he was good. The fact that,
like he wasn't James Bond earlier. He's like, oh yeah,
you're gonna cast Timothy Dalton, are you well, I'll go
beat Remington Steel jerks.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah, And then they tried to get him again, right,
I think so, And he was committed to Remington Steele,
which was sort of like James Bond for TV.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Oh so did he do Remington Steel first?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Oh? Yeah, he did Remington Steele. Well, it goes back
and forth. There was like Timothy Dalton was offered the
role before Roger Moore. Did you know that? No, I didn't.
When he was twenty one years old. Really he was
gonna replace Sean Connery. Well, and Dalton said I'm too
young to play James Bond. And then he comes around
years later just like just like uh, Brosnon did.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Okay, But I am glad that Pierce Broson went in.
I just happened to think that those his period of
movies were unfortunate.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
I thought they were pretty good.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
I didn't like them now I'm really happy with Daniel
craigs stuff so far.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Well, you know my statement on that is that was
the only direction they could take that franchise after the
Jason Bourne movies. You couldn't have a guy like winking
at the camera like Roger Moore and like slapstick sounds
and sound effects. You had to take him into like
a real bad, bad direction.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yes, you mean, like sim Ohaya bad. Yeah, So Double
six Alec Trevlyn, he is. I think he informs the
character Alex Krychek from X Files.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
You think so?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Huh?
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Sure, very nice, Josh.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
All right, So those are some of the villains, clearly,
not all, but we should also talk about some of
the people that James Bond had working on his side
at m I six.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
All right, we will call from here on out the
superfluous characters.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
No, dude, they're great. M Q M was the head
of m I six and there were several ms. It
was just a title and m was the one that's
always frustrated with Bond. Yet he knows that he's the
blunt instrument of choice. You know, pretty much in every movie,
r Q.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
You should say he or she for m true Dame
Judy Dench took over.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah. Man, she's doing a great job too. Q is
the head of the Q branch.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Judy Dench, did you hear that? Chuck just said you
were doing a great job, So keep it up.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Keep it up. Danger. Dame Dame, Dame Dame, Yeah, she's
a dame. Q is the head of the Q branch.
M I six is research and development branch, and Q,
as you might know, is the guy who in all
the films gives James his gadgets. There's always that great
scene where James goes into the laboratory and starts messing
(19:58):
around with the gadgets and exasperates Q because he's burning
something or he's firing a missile inside and he shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
That's Q, right, And he's now been replaced by his
former assistant R.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Right now is R John Clees. Yeah, yeah, he's doing
a good job. But he's the new Q. He just
used to be R well because Q died right Llewellen, Yes, Chuck,
that was the actor that played the original Q.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Or the Roger more Key that I loved?
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Right?
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Who else we got?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Felix Leer who I like Jack Lord Jeffrey Wright both
played him agent. And there's another guy named Hayward Wade.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Was he Cia?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
I thought they said they didn't know if he was
Dea or Cia.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
He was around before the Dea was was he Yeah?
And then you've got I think Jack Wade is his name.
And he was actually played by a couple of people,
including Joe Don Baker. Oh yeah, Pere's Brosnan Ones.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Yeah. Yeah, he had a couple of American counterparts. It's
a good point and.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Little known fact. Jo Don Baker was in Oh, I
can't remember the name of the movie, but it was
one of the greatest Mister Science Theater three thousands.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Really yeah, bad movie. And then of course we have
to mention Moneypenny. He was M's personal assistant and Moneypenny.
You always knew Moneypenny because James would come in and
flirt very much with her, and I always got the
sense that if James were to ever settle down with anyone,
which he clearly won't, it would have been Moneypenny sure,
(21:29):
or at least he made her think that. Right. Every
day was Secretary's day when James Bond was around. He
was always just so nice to her, bringing her things
from his travels, shot glasses and stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Right, spoons, She had an extensive spoon collection, refrigerator, magnets, Chuck, Josh,
let's talk about the movie show. Yeah, sure, well let's
talk about James Bond on screen because it wasn't necessarily
just relegated to the movies.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Oh yeah, good point.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
So James Bond first appears on screen on the small
screen on a CBS TV series called Climax with an
exclamation point really yeah wow, And he was first played
by a guy named Barry Nelson. Barry Nelson you may
recognize as mister Olman, the manager of the Overlook in
(22:16):
Kubrick's The Shining who tells Jack Torres the ropes. That's
the first guy to ever play James Bond.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Wow? Was he English?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
No?
Speaker 3 (22:24):
American?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yes, CBS TV series.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
So we've had a Scotsman's quite a few Englishmen, an
American and an Australian.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
And what what do you mean Australian?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
I mean someone from Australia. That was George Lazamy was Australian?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Was it? You know what happened to him?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Well, he wasn't much of an actor.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Well, it wasn't just that he after the success of
his Bond movie. I mean he played James Bond and
it was you know, filmed and produced.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
And released on Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Right, he was like, Holy Colm, James Bond, and I'm
going to buy a boat and sail around the world
for a while. And he came back and his star
had already faded because he did one thing and that
was that. Oh really, yeah, he kind of blew it.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
He wasn't much of an actor either.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
It wasn't but it wasn't just that. It was Yeah,
it was a combination of those two things.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
He was a bad dude though, Like he he got
the role apparently because he impressed Ian Fleming because he
had a faux fight scene with a wrestler for his
audition and he actually punched the guy, like got mad
and punched him, and Fleming's like, this is hard, dude. Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, because Fleming wrote the Bond character is much darker.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, the novel character for sure, Like.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Roger Moore took it in a very awful direction, pacific direction.
You know that was not the least bit like how
Ian Fleming had written them.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
You're the ultimate Roger Moore apologist. I love he's good
in The Saint and that's why I got the role,
I think. Okay, the TV show The.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Saint, all right, So Chuck, let's get back to the
beginning again. So we talked about Barry Nelson and on
the big screen, the first Bond ever was Sean Connery.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Right, yeah, well they did. They did a pilot though
on TV as well.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
That's the Barry Nelson one.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Oh, it was called Casino Royale though.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
No, right, it was based on Casino Royal or Gotcha Climax, okay,
which I think. You know how they used to do,
like they would have the name of the series, but
then there'd be like different like like Wonderful World of Disney. Yeah,
it was like the name of the series, but then
there were different like documentaries or gotcha tunes or whatever.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Okay, I think it was like that, and that flopped.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
And I didn't know what they were doing with TV
back in the day.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
They had no idea. So yeah, you're right, Doctor I
was the first film in nineteen sixty two and there's
been twenty two in total. No, yes, and we're waiting,
and that's official Bond films. Because they parodied him and
other things. What he Allen played him for Heaven's sake.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah, yeah, and in the parody he did of Casino Royale.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
There's also a an unofficial Bond film with an official Bond, right,
let's hear it, Never Say Never Again.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Yeah, that was Connrie's that was also fraught with the lawsuits.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
You know, that was based on the Thunderball lawsuit.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Yeah, they remade Thunderball, right, and they named.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
It Never Say Never Again because Conrie had said after
nineteen seventy one that he'd never play Bond again because
he played Bond what for the first like six movies
something like that, one, two.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Three, four, five, and then George Lazenby then he came
back and did Diamonds or Forever.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
And then after that came Roger Moore. Yes, and then
Roger Moore had a pretty good run. So Sean Connery
stops playing Bond. George Lazenby comes along, does it once leaves,
Sean Connery has to come back another time. After Sean Connery,
they get Roger Moore. In the midst of Roger Moore's run,
(25:50):
Sean Connery makes another Bond film, That's The Kid. Twelve
years after the last one he'd made.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Yeah, right, and yeah, Ken Beasinger was the bonche and
that one she was.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
And they called it never Say Never Again because he'd
said that he would never play Bond again.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Never Trebek, That's what he said, right, Timothy Dalton, I
guess we might as well venture into his years.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah. I saw those when they first came out, like
in the theaters, and I didn't think anything of them.
I don't know if they were over my head or whatever,
but I didn't like them.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
They were pretty good living daylights and licensed to kill.
They were both.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Are they good? Really?
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Yeah? I mean they were. It was definitely a more
novelistic Bond, like he was darker and a little more
bad dude, and that, I mean it might have had
something to do with it was coming off the heels
of Roger Moore in his vaudeville act that he brought
to Bond and Dalton had a two picture run and
then was replaced by who everyone thought should have been
Bond before Dalton, Pierce Brosnan for one, two, three, four films, right,
(26:49):
and then they went the inevitable direction with a blonde
Bond with Daniel Craig. Is that inevitable, you think, well,
I meant the inevitable way of making him a tough dude.
But yeah, his blindness was not inevitable. You know.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
You make fun of Roger Moore, but he had a
seven picture stint as James Bond.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Yeah, I mean, and that was our childhood, trust me, dude.
At the time, I loved it. But then when I
got older, I revisited all of the Sean Conneries, and
then I saw the butt kickingness of Timothy Dalton and
now Daniel Craig, And now I'm kind of like Roger
World was kind of a joke to me. No, you
still stand by it, I do, all right.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
I like Roger Moore.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Sam Neil was considered at one point.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
I could see him as James Bond.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
He would have been mad.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
He was great and dead calm.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah, that was a good movie.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
You know, I don't know that this even qualifies as
a podcast.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
People can be like you guys are just kind of
chit chatting, schuck.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
There's also theories, tons of them. Best one, actually, the
only one I could find really is the code name Theories.
Have you heard this? I have not cracked. I got
a lot of publicity for it by. It's a fan
theory that basically says, James Bond is a it's a
name that goes along with double O seven, and there's
(28:10):
each actor was playing an actual different person who had
assumed this undercover name James Bond. Really, which explains the
changes in personality. Yeah, it explains why Sean Connery was
so suave and Roger Moore was so goofy. Sure, it
explains why Daniel Craig and Timothy Dalton were so violent.
(28:31):
It explains a lot of stuff. Actually explains George Lazenby's
departure because his wife, the only time James Bond has
ever been married, died in that one honor her Majesty's
Secret Service.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yeah, he had a wife most people don't know, and
she was.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Killed by Blofeld. Right, so he leaves after that. That
explains that, right, absolutely. There's actually holes in that theory.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Do you know them?
Speaker 2 (28:55):
I know a couple like, for example, George Lazenbee recognized
gadgets that were debuted during Sean Connery's tenure. He was
a new person. He would it would be new to him.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
He'd be like, what's his start gun?
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Right, exactly right. And I think The Spy who Loved
Me Roger Moore is recognized from his college days at
Cambridge as James Bond, which would mean that he was
using the name before then. But it's still a pretty
cool theory. If you want any cool theory shot down,
I recommend you go to Commander Bond dot net, am
(29:29):
I six dot co dot uk or James Bondwiki dot
com as are some good sites.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
I'm gonna retrack my Roger Moore bashing a little bit.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
I actually liked like four out of seven of his films.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Okay, see, so you're right.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I forget sometimes I forget about the awesomeness of Live
and Let Die and Man with a Golden Gun for
Your Eyes Only. Those were all pretty good. It was
like octopusy Moonraker was really silly, does not age well
at all. And if you do a kill, I just
can't get behind him.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
You do a kill is awesome. What about The Spy
who Loved Me? That's the one with the Greater Water lotus?
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Yeah yeah, great, great movie.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
And I have one last fact. Are you ready?
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
The legendary Bond producer co producer Albert cubby broccoli. Yeah,
his family invented broccoli. They crossed cauliflower with rabe and
invented broccoli. And he actually left the family farm to
go to Hollywood to pursue his fortune when he was.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Like eighteen, are you making this? I am not. He
invented broccoli.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
His family did his like parents, grandparents.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
That's a pretty good fact.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Broccoley.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Very cool. Good for him. They're in trouble now though,
because MGM is in trouble.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah, but they're saying like it's just a blip on
the radar. If you listen to any anybuddy who's attached
to the Bond twenty three.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Oh, it'll happen at some point.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
But they're like this, it's fine.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Yeah, it's being delayed big time though, because MGM's and
over their heads financially.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
If you know anything about MGM, if you're an insider
at MGM, we want to hear from you. Let us
know what's going on with Bond.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
That's funny, we should. We got to talk about Bond girls.
That's one of the hallmarks of Bond films, and usually
there's two Bond girls at least there's like a hot
villain and like a hot an aid that helps him
out in some way. Sometimes she turns out to be
a villain. But there's usually two Bond girls and he's
(31:22):
equally attracted to both.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Like Grace Jones.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah, he's attracted to her for some reason. They are
fem fatales. Like I said, Bond cannot help but fall
for them, even though they it might mean he has
to eventually kill them after he makes sweet love to them. Right,
And I'm gonna go ahead and ask you what your
favorite Bond girl is.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
I just recently realized that Carrie Lowell was a Bond
girl and I used to have the biggest crush on
her when I would watch Wild Record No Law and
Order reruns on A. Yeah, they used to show like
Law and Order for like eight hour blocks on A
and E, and I'd be like, I'm not going to
(32:05):
class today, I'm just gonna watch Law and Order. And
she was on a lot of them. Yeah, she she
would be my favorite Bond girl.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
I'm going with Ursula Andres. Yeah, she was hot dude
back in the day. She played honey Rider. And that's
another hallmark of the Bond women is they usually had
really awful names that hinted it sexual innu window, Yeah,
you know, plenty o Tool, Honey Rider, pussy Galore, actually Solitaire,
(32:35):
Jane Seymour. She was pretty good in Living Let Die
like that. She was actually a really good actor, Okay.
Moonraker of course had a Holly gooodhead and a view
to a kill. I had Tanya Rhart's as Stacy Sutton.
They didn't even give her a cool name.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
So, Chuck, what's the best Bond theme song? Well, let
me take a wild guess.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
I'm gonna say Live and Let Die is probably my favorite.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Because I would have put the thousand dollars on that.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Or what's her name? Carly Simon spy who loved me?
Nobody does it better? Love that song?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Best fond theme song if it's not You Kill, Okay,
if it's not that, it is Nancy Sinatra singing You
Only Live Twice?
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yeah, that was awesome. Yes it was Shirley Bassie. Just
another little factoid.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
She did.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
No, she did more than that. She did a gold Finger,
she did Diamonds or Forever, she did Moon Raker, Moon
Raker's that's three total. I was also a big fan
of she and a Easton's For Your eyes Only, Yes,
she did and read a Coolidge all time high from Octopussy.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Didn't Tom Jones do Thunderball or something?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
He did?
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:50):
He did Thunderball. And since we're talking about the songs
that have really gotten lame in recent years, like the
Chris Cornellen and Garbage, you probably didn't even remember they
did songs.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Garbage did the one for World is Not Enough?
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Oh okay, Pierce Brosnan, Yeah, and Sheryl Crowe did one,
did she really?
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (34:12):
And Madonna did one and and now it's gotten to
the point where they're just like, like the last one,
they put Jack White with Alicia Keys.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Up next is Miley Cyrus. Oh God, say it ain't
so Bond twenty three?
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Uh, what else do we have here?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
This is the podcast that won't die. No, I do
have this Like James Bond, it just goes on.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
I do have a couple more facts. Okay, Well, first
of all, before you move on, if we're going to
talk about the songs, we need to talk about the
opening sequences, the title sequences. When you're a young Baptist
boy and there are naked, silhouetted women jumping on trampolines, Yeah,
it's very titillating and arousing and arousing for a young
boy named Chuck.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
I'm titillated and aroused.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
And then the opening sequence of the films typically is
some awesome action scene, and then the title sequence comes up.
There'll be like a seven minute action scene.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Right. They call it a cold opening, Buddy.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
A cold opening.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
That's very nice. And I just got a couple of
more facts for you, Josh, and then I'll let you
put this to bed all right with what would you
say is the highest grossing Bond film of all time
adjusted gross adjusted gross?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I would say Casino Royale No.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Top two all time Thunderball and gold Finger. You're a
liar adjusted gross, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Casino Royale worldwide netted like almost six hundred million dollars
so far.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
A bunch of money. Thunderball and Goldfinger did more, did
they really?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Thunderball and nineteen sixty five dude, gross to one hundred
and forty one million dollars?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
What and is that worldwide or US?
Speaker 3 (35:45):
That's worldwide? And that is close to what Licensed to
Kill gross in nineteen eighty nine, that grows like one
hundred and fifty something. And Thunderball you know, thirty years
more grossed one hundred and forty.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
One million, right, But what I'm saying is Casino Royale
gross six hundred million.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Well, I mean, yeah, that's not an adjusted gross though you.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Can't compare, you're figuring inflation.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yeah, that's what it's called an adjusted gross. And that's
about it. I mean, we could say the cars he
used real quickly, the Aston Martin obviously, my favorite is
the Lotus, The Lotus, the Alpha Romeo, and then that
new Audi. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Do you like the Audi?
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Yeah, it looks awesome, Okay, but I do miss the
Lotus and the fact that it could also be a submarine. Right.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
And lastly, Chuck, I would like to say to all
the kids of our generation, if you ever noticed the
similarity between Inspector Gadget and James Bond, you were dead on.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Yeah you think so?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah? All right, So that's about it. If you want
to know more about James Bond, Like I said, there
are three, at least three really good websites for all
things Bond fans, you can check out our website by
taping James Bond brings up a bunch of stuff in
the handy search bar and now, if you can believe it,
(37:10):
it is time for listener mail.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Yes, Josh, I'm gonna call this samurai stuff from Thomas Guys.
I'm a total samurai geek. I practiced Japanese sword based
martial arts kindo and ayido. I've read all this material
about samurai and your podcast was a very good introduction,
and I thank you for it. However, I am kind
of surprised you did not mention the greatest Samurai of
all time, Miyamoto Musashi. This guy was the epitome of
(37:37):
everything samurai were supposed to be. A dedicated soyvant, a poet,
a painter, a calligrapher, philosopher, a general, and an all
round butt kicking killer. Not only did he write the
Book of Five Rings, he also killed sixty men in
single combat before age forty, not to mention all the
guys he killed in warfare. At one point in your
podcast you talked about the wooden katana called kung in Japanese. Yes,
(38:02):
it was a practice sword, Josh, but it was also
a weapon in its own right. Because Japan is such
a wet climate, swords were sometimes destroyed by rust. Bucan
were cheap and easy to replace, and Musashi was famous
for winning some of his greatest battles with the wooden sword.
Ow I know, can you imagine.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Dude ow Go being smacked to death?
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Well, he says instead of cutting someone's heads off, he
would brain them, which I guess means like you crack
their skull, yeah, until their brains come out. Also, he
was a big fan of using two swords at one time,
sometimes two katana, sometimes the short and the long. Whatever
it took to do the job. You guys, Rocket love
your show. I'm grateful for the Samurai show from Thomas.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Well, thank you Thomas for the extra information. As I said,
we are always interested in knowing everything we possibly can
about a subject. So if you have anything to tell
us about James Bond that we missed, that we got wrong,
that we need to know, we want to hear it,
wrap it up and send it in any don't forget
to spank it on a bottom and maybe serve it
a dry martini shaken not stirred. Address it too. Stuff
(39:09):
podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com. Want more house stuff works, check out
our blogs on the HowStuffWorks dot com home page, Brought
to you by the reinvented twenty twelve Camri. It's ready,
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