June 27, 2025 • 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):
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, and I'd like to welcome
you to the Stuff You Should Know Summer Movie Playlist.
It's summertime, and we thought what better way to kick
off one of the four greatest seasons of the year
with a focus on movies, Because what scream summer more
than a nice, darkened, cool, air conditioned theater and a
great movie playing right in front of you. So we're
(00:23):
gonna start the whole thing off with our July twenty
ten episode on What's the Deal with Bond? James Bond.
Hope you enjoy. Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know
from HowStuffWorks dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:47):
I'm Josh Clark. Hi with me is Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Bryant, Charles Bryant.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
How is it going, Chuck? It's an odd way to
introduce yourself, don't you.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Think not if you're a super spy?
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Are you a superspy? Actually?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I wouldn't say James Bond was even a spy.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Secret Service? Is that a spy? Really? No, he was
an assassin and yeah, just general plot disruptor. I would
say he was.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
A blunt instrument of the Crown 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.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
You just sent James Bond.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, get jb on the phone double seven. Yeah, he'll
he'll take care of business. Like Elvis.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
You could call him on his car phone long before
any car had a phone.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah all right, yeah, he was always pre dating technology.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah. As a matter of fact, there's a James Bond
theory of entrepreneurial innovation.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I believe that.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
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 2 (02:05):
Oh yeah, they were like, oh my god, he's on
the telephone.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Right in a car. But that's what they sounded like
in England though. Oh yeah, well sure that this actually
Ghana right.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
So Josh, where do we start here? We can't, we
can't not start with Ian Fleming.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Ian Fleming, so we gotta start. Let's do it. No,
that was there was a colon after that.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Oh, Ian Fleming colon 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, right in novel form.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
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 2 (03:05):
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 1 (03:20):
Do you know who was assigned to his spy unit
James Bond? Yeah, no, there we was the guy who
was the inspiration for James Bond. His name was William Stevenson,
aka Intrepid.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Right, yeah, one of many inspirations.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
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 2 (03:49):
Right, Well, in romanticized version of himself.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
To an extent. Sure. Another member of that spy ring
was a guy named Roald Dahl who wrote James and
the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, and a bunch of body books.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
He also had the non children's books that were a
little racier. Yes, not many people know that.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
So Chuck, let's talk a little bit more about Ian Fleming.
Well give it to us, buddy.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
A skier.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
He dove with Jacques Cousteau and you know, snow skied
from the tops of mountains in Switzerland. And had a
place in Jamaica where he actually wrote all these books.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
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 what a life? Yeah, you know, yeah,
it's time for me to go to my estate in
Jamaica and write a book that's going to just make
(04:59):
me millions more.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
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 butt.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Right, you know what the opposite of that is, hack
saw Jim Duggan.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, he should have named him that.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, well, then it would have competed with the character.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Duggan hacksaw Jim Dugan. I could hear that? So, yeah,
he wrote. See the article says thirteen novels.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Well, he wrote thirteen books.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I got fourteen.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
What's the fourteenth?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
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 1 (05:57):
Huh, So are we gonna go with fourteen? Because you
are quite the sniffer, Let's.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Go with fourteen total? Okay, twelve novels.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
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 2 (06:16):
Yeah, they were in between. They were toward the end.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Okay, but so he was getting fat and lazy in Jamaica.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, interestingly though, or maybe it's not that interesting. They
made the movies way out of order.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah they did.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
The Doctor Now was the first film, but that was
the sixth novel.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
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 come up with as Thunderball. The guy sued
(06:54):
his pants off and actually gained custody gained the rights
to the book Thunderball, which tied it up and made
them opt for Doctor No to go first instead.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
There was a lot of litigation over the years in
the Bond franchise.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yes, there was.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I guess when you have a franchise that long and
that vast, there's going to be people suing people over something.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Well, plus it's legendary. He's a legendary character, and you know,
he's made a lot of money for a lot of people. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
The other interesting thing I thought just before we move
on was that Moonraker was written in nineteen fifty five.
That was the 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
a man with a golden gun, which was the Roger
(07:44):
Moore's second film was the final novel and it was
released after his death. Huh, so it was way out
of order.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
And in that one he predicted herve Vasche, which nobody
saw come in except Ian Fleming. Yeah, you know right, Yeah,
let's talk about James Bond a little bit, the character
James Bond. So it turns out James Bond had a
Scottish father, which it didn't originally.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Now that came about because of Sean Connedy.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah. Ian Fleming was not a big fan of Sean
Connery at 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
(08:37):
and changed James Bond's history 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.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Andrew, and a Swiss mother Monique Delacroix and nice.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yeah, and they both died mountain climbing, right.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
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. 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 1 (09:15):
Yeah, because Body the exhibition wasn't showing in Miami in
like nineteen fifty eight or anything.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So yeah, there's a sliding scale there obviously to make
it viable. But James, much like his author namesake, Ian
Fleming not namesake that would make and change fun much
like the author Ian Fleming was went to the Royal
Navy in World War Two, rose to the rank of commander.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
After the war, that's when he entered the sis known
as mi I six.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
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 2 (09:53):
Weren't they assassinations right off the bat?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
So he that's apparently you have to kill two people
to get a double O status, which is the license
to kill, and he got them, like you say, right
off the bat.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
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
there female agents? Yeah? There were female agents.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Okay, I'm pretty sure, and we should probably take the
time here to explain. I like James Bond. I know
that you like James Bond movies too.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Is this the disclaimer We're gonna get killed here?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
We are not members of James Bond fandom? I would say,
all right.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I mean I've seen all the movies, but no, I
haven't studied the books.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I've never read any of the books. I don't think
i've seen all the movies. Yeah, 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're going to walk right past information sure that
we just don't know exists. So in a very friendly manner,
(11:02):
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. Right.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Oh, they'll let us know. They will, except for the
three dudes that just turned it off into it Well,
they have no business even attempting this thing.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Right, and then they go give us a one star
rating on iTunes.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
So back to Bond. He as we all know as
a sharp dresser, and he loves fast cars. He loves
his martini shaking nuts stirred. He loves women.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, and do you know if you shake a Martine
instead of stirring it, you pretty much ruin it.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I disagree, I shake all my martinis.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Dude, How does it ruin it? It feathers it? I
think what does that mean it means it's screwed up?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
What does that mean? I like a good dirty martini myself.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Oh you like them dirty?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Oh yeah, gross, Jared said. Word.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I like my martini's so light. It's basically this a
vodka rocks.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
So you just like the vermouth bottle just waved near
the glass pretty much. I like just a little vermouth,
little olive juice, but no olive.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
No olive juice. I'll put in all I'll put three
olives in usually really all right, But then I eat
him so fast that they have no time to taint
the martini.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
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 karate chop. Yeah the karate Oh yeah, yeah, that
was a big deal in the seventies. And he carried
(12:38):
a famously 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 1 (12:45):
And I've played Golden nine, played best game. Just played
Golden Nine. It is a great game.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, and you know they're bringing that back for wee.
I've heard Matt Frederick of Coolest 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 1 (13:11):
That's gonna be fantastic for the Wii.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, pretty exciting. Back to the real life of the
Fake Life of James Bond.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
That's why we should have titled this podcast the.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Real Life of the Fake Life.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
How about uh, let's talk about some of the enemies.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Doctor No. He was the first one to appear in.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
The films, Doctor Julius, now right, he's.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
An atomic scientist.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
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.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah he was. Eh, you don't like him, no, not really,
that was a big Goldfinger guy.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
He tried to laser the crotch of James Bond.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Oh yeah, that's right, pretty hardcore. Yeah, it's like Max Scorpio. Yeah,
in that Simpsons where oh yeah, ends 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 2 (14:08):
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. Yeah, Jaws.
We grew up with Roger Moore, so he can't not
talk about Jaws.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
No, he was great too. He was in two of them, right,
he was in Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved Me.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I thought he might have been more than that, but
he definitely.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
I looked it up.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
He was only in two two really, goy, I made
quite an impression.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah he did.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
He found the girlfriend in Moonaker I think.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Yeah, falls in love or something.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, the little like nerdy girl.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
And then he pops up again in Happy Gilmore.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Was he in that? Yeah? I didn't see that.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, he was Happy Gilmour's boss, like on the construction
site and he ends up becoming a.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Fan and wow, did he have the teeth?
Speaker 1 (14:53):
No, he didn't have the teeth just for the movie.
But he was a big guy.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yes, lately, we've had more recent villains that I don't
think the new villains compare personally.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
They kind of come and go. You know, there's like
in Casino Royale.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
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.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
By like Tellis Pleasance.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, Donald Pleasance was my favorite version. And Max van
sea Doll played him, I think, and uh, never say
never again.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Maybe Max fan he's a class act.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
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 Seadal 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, right,
He's the villain, or so.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
You think until Shutter Island falls apart at the end.
Don't ruin it so u.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
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. Right, it's great
villainoust title there.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
That's not only like a great name that it's your
mission statement.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, you know, all wrapped up into one.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
One of my favorites, mac Zorin, played by the great
Christopher Walkin. He was he was the dude.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I know you loved that movie.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
One of the best bomb movies ever, but.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
That had the worst Bond woman ever, Grace Jones. No,
Tanya Roberts, I don't remember her. She was the Bond girl.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
She was the lady from the seventies show that was
like one of the late Charlie's Angels replacements.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Tanya Roberts. Yeah, yeah, who cares. It was the eighties,
nobody was paying that much attention.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
But it was a good song.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
It was, and Christopher Walkin was in it. Grace Jones
was in it. She was pretty scary in that. Yes,
she was excellent. Talk about a martial artist. But mac
Zorin is did you know he was the product of
genetic experiments by Nazis. Walking was well not walking man, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, yeah, I don't I don't remember that.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah. And one of the unintended side effects was he
was a complete psychopath.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I thought you were gonna say. One of the side
effects was his use of punctuation.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
You are good man.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Everybody does walking.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I can't do it walking.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Let's hear it.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
My No, it's really just an altered h John Travolta,
why are you so weird?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Dude?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
That's great, of course, Chuck, there's double six Alec Trevlyn.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, what was he? And that was one of the
Pierce Brosen ones, wasn't it.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah? I think yeah, which I don't remember those. I
love Pierce Brosen, 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
be Remington Steel well jerks. Yeah, And then they tried
to get him again, right, I think so.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And he was committed to Remington Steele. Yeah, was sort
of like James Bond for TV.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Oh so did he do Remington Steel first? Oh?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
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?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
No, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
When he was twenty one years old. Really he was
going to replace Sean Connery. Well, and Dalton said, I'm
too young to play James Bond. And then he comes
around years later just like to just like uh Brosnen did.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Okay, but I am glad that Pierce Brosnen went in.
I just happened to think that those his period of
movies were unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
I thought they were pretty good.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
I didn't like him. Now I'm really happy with Daniel
Craig's stuff so far.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
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 1 (19:02):
Yes, you mean like sim Ohaia bad. Yeah, so Double
six Alec Trevlyn he is. I think he informs the
character Alex Krychek from X Files. You think, so, huh,
very nice Josh.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
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 1 (19:29):
All right, which we will call from here on out
the superfluous characters.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
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,
right que, you.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Should say he or she for M true Dame Judy
Dench took over.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, man, she's doing a great job too. Is the
head of the Q branch, Judy Dench.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Did you hear that? Chuck just said you were doing
a great job. So keep it up, Keep.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
It up, Dan Jersey, Dame Dane, Dame Dame.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, she's a Dame.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Q is the head of the Q branch. 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 around with the gadgets
and exasperates Q because he's burning something or he's firing
(20:33):
a missile inside and he shouldn't be.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
That's Q, right, And he's now been replaced by his
former assistant R.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Right now is R John Clees?
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yeah, yeah, he's doing a good job, but he's the
new Q.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
He just used to be R well because Q died,
right Lee Ellen, Yes, Chuck, that was the actor that
played the original Q.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Or the Roger More Q that I loved? Right? Who else?
Speaker 1 (20:57):
We got Felix Leiter who I like, Jack Lord Jeffrey
Wright both played him agent huh. And then there's another
guy named Hayward Wade. Was he Cia? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I thought they said they didn't know if he was
Dea or Cia.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
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, Pierce Brosnan ones, yeah, yeah,
he had a couple of American counterparts.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
It's a good point.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
And little known fact. Joe 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 2 (21:38):
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,
(21:59):
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 1 (22:09):
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 2 (22:25):
Oh yeah, good point.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
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
(22:46):
Kubrick's The Shining who tells Jack Torris the ropes. That's
the first guy to ever play James Bond.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Wow? Was he English?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
No?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
American?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yes, CBS TV series.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
So we've had a Scotsman's quite a few Englishmen, an
American and an Australian And what what do you mean Australian?
I mean someone from Australia. That was George Lazenby was Australian?
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Was it? You know what happened to him? Well, he
wasn't much of an actor. 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 and released on Her Majesty's Secret Service, Right,
he was like, holy Colm, James Bond and I'm going
to buy a boat and sail around the world for
(23:30):
a while. And he came back and his star had
already faded because he did one thing and that was that.
Oh really yeah, yeah, he kind of blew it. He
wasn't much of an actor either, It wasn't but it
wasn't just that. It was yeah, it was a combination
of those two things.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
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 Flemings like this is hard, dude.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Wow. Yeah, because Fleming wrote the Bond character much darker.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, the novel character for sure.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Like Roger Moore took it in a very awful director
specific direction. You know that was not the least bit
like how Ian Fleming had written them.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
You're the ultimate Roger Moore apologist. He's good in the
Saint and that's why I got the role, I think. Okay,
the TV show The 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. Right, well they did. They did
(24:32):
a pilot though on TV as well.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
That's the Barry Nelson one. Oh it was called Casino
Royale though no, right, it was based on Casino Royal Climax, Okay,
which I think you know how they used to do
like they would they would have the name of the series,
but then there 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. Okay, I think it was like
(24:56):
that and that flopped and I didn't know what they
were doing with TV back in the day.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
They had no idea.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Doctor NOA 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 in other things what he Allen played him for
Heaven's Sake.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah, yeah, in the parody he did of Casino Royale. Yeah,
there's also an unofficial Bond film with an official Bond right,
let's hear it, Never Say Never Again.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yeah, that was Conrie's That was also fraught with the lawsuits.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
You know, that was based on the Thunderball lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah, they remade Thunderball, right, and.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
They named 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.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
One, two, three, four, five, and then George Lazenby then
he came back and did Diamonds or Forever.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
And then after after that Kime 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, Sean Connery makes another Bond film.
(26:22):
That's what we were kids, twelve years after the last
one he'd made.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, right, and yeah, Kim Beasinger was the Bond checking
that one.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
She was and they called it never Say Never Again
because he'd said that he would never play Bond again.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Never Trebek That's what he said, right, Timothy Dalton, I
guess we might as well venture into his years.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
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 2 (26:50):
They were pretty good living daylights and licensed to kill.
They were both are they good. Really, Yeah, I mean
it was definitely a more novelistic Bond, like he was
darker and 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
(27:13):
thought should have been Bond before Dalton, Pierce Brosnan for one, two, three,
four films, right, and then they went the inevitable direction
with a blond bond with Daniel Craig.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Is that inevitable you think?
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Well, I meant the inevitable way of making him a
tough dude. But yeah, his blondness was not inevitable.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
You know. You make fun of Roger Moore, but he
had a seven picture stint as James Bond.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
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 Connerys, and
then I saw the butt kickingness of Timothy Dalton and
now Daniel Craig, And now I'm kind of like Roger
Moore was kind of a joke to me. Now you
still stand by it?
Speaker 1 (27:54):
I do, all right. I like Roger Moore.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Sam Neil was considered at one point.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
I could see him as James Bond. He was great
and dead calm.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah, that was a good movie.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
You know, I don't know that this even qualifies as
a podcast.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
People canna be like you guys are just kind of
chit chatting, Chuck.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
There's also theories, tons of the best one actually, the
only one I could find really is the code name theory.
Have you heard this?
Speaker 2 (28:25):
I have not cracked.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
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 each actor was playing an actual different person
who had assumed this undercover name James Bond. Really, which
(28:48):
explains the changes in personality. Yeah, it explains why Sean
Connery was so suave and Roger Moore was so goofy. Sure,
explains why Daniel Craig and Timothy Dalton were so violent, right,
It explains a lot of stuff. Actually explains George Lazenbe's
departure because his wife the only time James Bond has
ever been married died in that one honor her Majesty's
(29:12):
Secret Service.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, he had a wife most people don't.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Know, and she was killed by Blofeld. Right, so he
leaves after that. That explains that, right, absolutely. There's actually
holes in that theory.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Do you know them?
Speaker 1 (29:25):
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.
He'd be like, what's his start gun? Right? Exactly right?
And I think the spy who loved me, Roger Moore
is recognized from his college days at Cambridge as James Bond,
(29:48):
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, m I six do co dot
uk or James bondwiki dot com. Those are some good sites.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I'm going to retrack my Roger more bashing a little bit. Okay,
I actually liked like four out of seven of his films.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Okay, see, so you're right.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
I forget sometimes I forget about the awesomeness of Live
and Let Die and Man with a Golden Gun for
your Eyes Only. Those are all pretty good. It was
like Octopussy, Moonraker was really silly, does not age well
at all, and uh, you do a kill? I just
can't get behind him.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
You do a kill is awesome. What about the Spy
who Loved Me? That's the one with the greater water lotus?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah? Yeah, great, great movie.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
And I have one last fact. Are you ready? Oh yeah,
the legendary Bond producer co producer Albert Cubby Broccli. Yeah,
his family invented broccoli. They crossed cauliflower with rabe and
invented broccley. And he actually left the family farm to
go to Hollywood to pursue his fortune when he was
like eighteen.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Are you making this up?
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I am not.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
He invented broccoli.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
His family did is like parents, grandparents. That's a pretty
good fact, Rockley, very cool.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Good for him. They're in trouble now though, because MGM
is in trouble.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
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 2 (31:16):
Oh, it'll happen at some point, but it's like fine, Yeah,
it's being delayed big time though, because MGM's and over
their heads financially.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
If you know anything about MGM, if you're an insider, MGM,
we want to hear from you. Let us know what's
going on with Bond.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
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
(31:51):
equally attracted to both. Like Grace Jones, Yeah, he's attracted
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
(32:11):
go ahead and ask you what your favorite Bond girl is.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
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 Orcid no Law and Order
reruns on A and E. 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
(32:35):
to class to day, I'm just gonna watch Law and Order.
And she was on a lot of them. Yeah, she
would be my favorite Bond girl.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yeah, you know, plenty o tool An.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Ryder, pussy Galore, uh, actually Solitaire, Jane Seymour, she was
pretty good and Living let Die like that.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
She was actually a really good actor. Okay.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Moonraker of course had a holly goodhead and a view
to a kill. I had Tanya Rarts as Stacy Sutton.
They didn't even give her a cool.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Name, So, Chuck, what's the best Bond theme song? Well,
let me take a wild guess.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
I'm gonna say Live and Let Die is probably my favorite.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Because I would have put a thousand dollars on that or.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
What's her name? Carly Simon, spy who loved me? Nobody
does it better?
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Love that song best Bond theme song. If it's not
You Do a Kill? Okay, if it's not that, it
is Nancy Sinatra singing You Only Live Twice?
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Yeah, that was awesome. Yes it was Shirley Bassie. Just
another little factoid.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
She did.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
No, she did more than that. She did gold Finger,
she did Diamonds or Forever, she did Moonraker, Moon Raker's
that's three total. I was also a big fan of
She and Easton's For Your Eyes Only. Yes, she did
go and readA Coolidge all time high from Octopussy.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Didn't Tom Jones do Thunderball or something?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
He did?
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
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 1 (34:32):
Garbage did the one for World Is Not Enough?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Oh okay, Pierce Brosnan, Yeah, and Sheryl Crowe did one,
did she really?
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:41):
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 1 (34:49):
Up next is Miley Cyrus. Oh God, say it ain't
so fond twenty three?
Speaker 2 (34:55):
What else do we have here?
Speaker 1 (34:57):
This is the podcast that won't die, No I do.
It's like James Bond, It just goes on.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
I do have a couple of more facts.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Okay, Well, first of all, before.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
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.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Yeah, it's very titillating and arousing and arousing for a
young boy named Chuck. I'm titillated and aroused.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
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 1 (35:31):
Right. They call it a cold opening, Buddy, a cold opening.
Uh huh. That's very nice.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
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 it? What would you say is the highest
grossing Bond film of all time adjusted.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Gross adjusted gross? I would say Casino Royale, No.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Top two all time Thunderball and gold Finger. You're a
liar adjusted gross.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
You know, Casino Royale worldwide knitted like almost six hundred
million dollars so far.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
A bunch of money. Thunderball and Goldfinger did more, did
they really? Yeah? Thunderball and nineteen sixty five dude, gross
to one hundred and forty one million dollars?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
What and is that worldwide or us?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
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 gross one hundred and forty one million.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Right, But what I'm saying is Casino Royale gross six
hundred million?
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Well, I mean, yeah, that's not an adjusted gross though
you can't compare.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
You're figuring inflation in Yeah, that's what it's called an
adjusted gross.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
And that's about it. I mean, we could say the
cars he used real quickly, the Aston Martin obviously.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
My favorite is the Lotus, the Lotus.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
The Alpha Romeo and then that new Audi that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Do you like the Audi?
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah it looks awesome, Okay, but missed the Lotus in
the fact that it could also be a submarine.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
And lastly, Chuck, I would like to say to all
the kids of our generation, if you ever noticed a
similarity between Inspector Gadget and James Bond, you were dead on.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Yeah you think so?
Speaker 1 (37:17):
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 fandom. You can check out our website by
typing James Bond brings up a bunch of stuff in
the handy search bar. And now, if you can believe it,
(37:39):
it is time for listener mail.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
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, kendo and ayado. 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
(38:07):
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 bokung in Japanese. Yes,
(38:32):
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. Bokan
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 dude.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Owyh uh coving smacked to death.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Well, he says instead of cutting someone's heads off, he
would brain them, which I guess means like the skull
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 1 (39:14):
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 an email. Don't
forget to spank it on a bottom and maybe serve
it a dry martini shaken not stirred. Address it too.
(39:38):
Stuff podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com. Want more house stuff works, check out
our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home
page
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, and I'd like to welcome
you to the Stuff You Should Know Summer Movie Playlist.
It's summertime, and we thought what better way to kick
off one of the four greatest seasons of the year
with a focus on movies, Because what scream summer more
than a nice, darkened, cool, air conditioned theater and a
great movie playing right in front of you. So we're
(00:23):
gonna start the whole thing off with our July twenty
ten episode on What's the Deal with Bond? James Bond.
Hope you enjoy. Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know
from HowStuffWorks dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:47):
I'm Josh Clark. Hi with me is Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Bryant, Charles Bryant.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
How is it going, Chuck? It's an odd way to
introduce yourself, don't you.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Think not if you're a super spy?
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Are you a superspy? Actually?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I wouldn't say James Bond was even a spy.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Secret Service? Is that a spy? Really? No, he was
an assassin and yeah, just general plot disruptor. I would
say he was.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
A blunt instrument of the Crown 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.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
You just sent James Bond.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, get jb on the phone double seven. Yeah, he'll
he'll take care of business. Like Elvis.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
You could call him on his car phone long before
any car had a phone.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah all right, yeah, he was always pre dating technology.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah. As a matter of fact, there's a James Bond
theory of entrepreneurial innovation.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I believe that.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
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 2 (02:05):
Oh yeah, they were like, oh my god, he's on
the telephone.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Right in a car. But that's what they sounded like
in England though. Oh yeah, well sure that this actually
Ghana right.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
So Josh, where do we start here? We can't, we
can't not start with Ian Fleming.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Ian Fleming, so we gotta start. Let's do it. No,
that was there was a colon after that.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Oh, Ian Fleming colon 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, right in novel form.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
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 2 (03:05):
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 1 (03:20):
Do you know who was assigned to his spy unit
James Bond? Yeah, no, there we was the guy who
was the inspiration for James Bond. His name was William Stevenson,
aka Intrepid.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Right, yeah, one of many inspirations.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
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 2 (03:49):
Right, Well, in romanticized version of himself.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
To an extent. Sure. Another member of that spy ring
was a guy named Roald Dahl who wrote James and
the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, and a bunch of body books.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
He also had the non children's books that were a
little racier. Yes, not many people know that.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
So Chuck, let's talk a little bit more about Ian Fleming.
Well give it to us, buddy.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
A skier.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
He dove with Jacques Cousteau and you know, snow skied
from the tops of mountains in Switzerland. And had a
place in Jamaica where he actually wrote all these books.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
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 what a life? Yeah, you know, yeah,
it's time for me to go to my estate in
Jamaica and write a book that's going to just make
(04:59):
me millions more.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
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 butt.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Right, you know what the opposite of that is, hack
saw Jim Duggan.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, he should have named him that.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, well, then it would have competed with the character.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Duggan hacksaw Jim Dugan. I could hear that? So, yeah,
he wrote. See the article says thirteen novels.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Well, he wrote thirteen books.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I got fourteen.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
What's the fourteenth?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
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 1 (05:57):
Huh, So are we gonna go with fourteen? Because you
are quite the sniffer, Let's.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Go with fourteen total? Okay, twelve novels.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
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 2 (06:16):
Yeah, they were in between. They were toward the end.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Okay, but so he was getting fat and lazy in Jamaica.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, interestingly though, or maybe it's not that interesting. They
made the movies way out of order.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah they did.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
The Doctor Now was the first film, but that was
the sixth novel.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
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 come up with as Thunderball. The guy sued
(06:54):
his pants off and actually gained custody gained the rights
to the book Thunderball, which tied it up and made
them opt for Doctor No to go first instead.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
There was a lot of litigation over the years in
the Bond franchise.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yes, there was.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I guess when you have a franchise that long and
that vast, there's going to be people suing people over something.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Well, plus it's legendary. He's a legendary character, and you know,
he's made a lot of money for a lot of people. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
The other interesting thing I thought just before we move
on was that Moonraker was written in nineteen fifty five.
That was the 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
a man with a golden gun, which was the Roger
(07:44):
Moore's second film was the final novel and it was
released after his death. Huh, so it was way out
of order.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
And in that one he predicted herve Vasche, which nobody
saw come in except Ian Fleming. Yeah, you know right, Yeah,
let's talk about James Bond a little bit, the character
James Bond. So it turns out James Bond had a
Scottish father, which it didn't originally.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Now that came about because of Sean Connedy.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah. Ian Fleming was not a big fan of Sean
Connery at 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
(08:37):
and changed James Bond's history 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.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Andrew, and a Swiss mother Monique Delacroix and nice.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yeah, and they both died mountain climbing, right.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
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. 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 1 (09:15):
Yeah, because Body the exhibition wasn't showing in Miami in
like nineteen fifty eight or anything.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So yeah, there's a sliding scale there obviously to make
it viable. But James, much like his author namesake, Ian
Fleming not namesake that would make and change fun much
like the author Ian Fleming was went to the Royal
Navy in World War Two, rose to the rank of commander.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
After the war, that's when he entered the sis known
as mi I six.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
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 2 (09:53):
Weren't they assassinations right off the bat?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
So he that's apparently you have to kill two people
to get a double O status, which is the license
to kill, and he got them, like you say, right
off the bat.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
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
there female agents? Yeah? There were female agents.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Okay, I'm pretty sure, and we should probably take the
time here to explain. I like James Bond. I know
that you like James Bond movies too.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Is this the disclaimer We're gonna get killed here?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
We are not members of James Bond fandom? I would say,
all right.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I mean I've seen all the movies, but no, I
haven't studied the books.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I've never read any of the books. I don't think
i've seen all the movies. Yeah, 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're going to walk right past information sure that
we just don't know exists. So in a very friendly manner,
(11:02):
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. Right.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Oh, they'll let us know. They will, except for the
three dudes that just turned it off into it Well,
they have no business even attempting this thing.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Right, and then they go give us a one star
rating on iTunes.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
So back to Bond. He as we all know as
a sharp dresser, and he loves fast cars. He loves
his martini shaking nuts stirred. He loves women.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, and do you know if you shake a Martine
instead of stirring it, you pretty much ruin it.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I disagree, I shake all my martinis.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Dude, How does it ruin it? It feathers it? I
think what does that mean it means it's screwed up?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
What does that mean? I like a good dirty martini myself.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Oh you like them dirty?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Oh yeah, gross, Jared said. Word.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I like my martini's so light. It's basically this a
vodka rocks.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
So you just like the vermouth bottle just waved near
the glass pretty much. I like just a little vermouth,
little olive juice, but no olive.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
No olive juice. I'll put in all I'll put three
olives in usually really all right, But then I eat
him so fast that they have no time to taint
the martini.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
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 karate chop. Yeah the karate Oh yeah, yeah, that
was a big deal in the seventies. And he carried
(12:38):
a famously 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 1 (12:45):
And I've played Golden nine, played best game. Just played
Golden Nine. It is a great game.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, and you know they're bringing that back for wee.
I've heard Matt Frederick of Coolest 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 1 (13:11):
That's gonna be fantastic for the Wii.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, pretty exciting. Back to the real life of the
Fake Life of James Bond.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
That's why we should have titled this podcast the.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Real Life of the Fake Life.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
How about uh, let's talk about some of the enemies.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Doctor No. He was the first one to appear in.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
The films, Doctor Julius, now right, he's.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
An atomic scientist.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
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.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah he was. Eh, you don't like him, no, not really,
that was a big Goldfinger guy.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
He tried to laser the crotch of James Bond.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Oh yeah, that's right, pretty hardcore. Yeah, it's like Max Scorpio. Yeah,
in that Simpsons where oh yeah, ends 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 2 (14:08):
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. Yeah, Jaws.
We grew up with Roger Moore, so he can't not
talk about Jaws.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
No, he was great too. He was in two of them, right,
he was in Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved Me.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I thought he might have been more than that, but
he definitely.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
I looked it up.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
He was only in two two really, goy, I made
quite an impression.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah he did.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
He found the girlfriend in Moonaker I think.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Yeah, falls in love or something.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, the little like nerdy girl.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
And then he pops up again in Happy Gilmore.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Was he in that? Yeah? I didn't see that.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, he was Happy Gilmour's boss, like on the construction
site and he ends up becoming a.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Fan and wow, did he have the teeth?
Speaker 1 (14:53):
No, he didn't have the teeth just for the movie.
But he was a big guy.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yes, lately, we've had more recent villains that I don't
think the new villains compare personally.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
They kind of come and go. You know, there's like
in Casino Royale.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
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.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
By like Tellis Pleasance.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, Donald Pleasance was my favorite version. And Max van
sea Doll played him, I think, and uh, never say
never again.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Maybe Max fan he's a class act.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
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 Seadal 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, right,
He's the villain, or so.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
You think until Shutter Island falls apart at the end.
Don't ruin it so u.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
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. Right, it's great
villainoust title there.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
That's not only like a great name that it's your
mission statement.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, you know, all wrapped up into one.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
One of my favorites, mac Zorin, played by the great
Christopher Walkin. He was he was the dude.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I know you loved that movie.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
One of the best bomb movies ever, but.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
That had the worst Bond woman ever, Grace Jones. No,
Tanya Roberts, I don't remember her. She was the Bond girl.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
She was the lady from the seventies show that was
like one of the late Charlie's Angels replacements.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Tanya Roberts. Yeah, yeah, who cares. It was the eighties,
nobody was paying that much attention.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
But it was a good song.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
It was, and Christopher Walkin was in it. Grace Jones
was in it. She was pretty scary in that. Yes,
she was excellent. Talk about a martial artist. But mac
Zorin is did you know he was the product of
genetic experiments by Nazis. Walking was well not walking man, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, yeah, I don't I don't remember that.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah. And one of the unintended side effects was he
was a complete psychopath.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I thought you were gonna say. One of the side
effects was his use of punctuation.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
You are good man.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Everybody does walking.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I can't do it walking.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Let's hear it.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
My No, it's really just an altered h John Travolta,
why are you so weird?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Dude?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
That's great, of course, Chuck, there's double six Alec Trevlyn.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, what was he? And that was one of the
Pierce Brosen ones, wasn't it.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah? I think yeah, which I don't remember those. I
love Pierce Brosen, 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
be Remington Steel well jerks. Yeah, And then they tried
to get him again, right, I think so.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And he was committed to Remington Steele. Yeah, was sort
of like James Bond for TV.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Oh so did he do Remington Steel first? Oh?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
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?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
No, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
When he was twenty one years old. Really he was
going to replace Sean Connery. Well, and Dalton said, I'm
too young to play James Bond. And then he comes
around years later just like to just like uh Brosnen did.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Okay, but I am glad that Pierce Brosnen went in.
I just happened to think that those his period of
movies were unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
I thought they were pretty good.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
I didn't like him. Now I'm really happy with Daniel
Craig's stuff so far.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
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 1 (19:02):
Yes, you mean like sim Ohaia bad. Yeah, so Double
six Alec Trevlyn he is. I think he informs the
character Alex Krychek from X Files. You think, so, huh,
very nice Josh.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
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 1 (19:29):
All right, which we will call from here on out
the superfluous characters.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
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,
right que, you.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Should say he or she for M true Dame Judy
Dench took over.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, man, she's doing a great job too. Is the
head of the Q branch, Judy Dench.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Did you hear that? Chuck just said you were doing
a great job. So keep it up, Keep.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
It up, Dan Jersey, Dame Dane, Dame Dame.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, she's a Dame.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Q is the head of the Q branch. 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 around with the gadgets
and exasperates Q because he's burning something or he's firing
(20:33):
a missile inside and he shouldn't be.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
That's Q, right, And he's now been replaced by his
former assistant R.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Right now is R John Clees?
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yeah, yeah, he's doing a good job, but he's the
new Q.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
He just used to be R well because Q died,
right Lee Ellen, Yes, Chuck, that was the actor that
played the original Q.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Or the Roger More Q that I loved? Right? Who else?
Speaker 1 (20:57):
We got Felix Leiter who I like, Jack Lord Jeffrey
Wright both played him agent huh. And then there's another
guy named Hayward Wade. Was he Cia? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I thought they said they didn't know if he was
Dea or Cia.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
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, Pierce Brosnan ones, yeah, yeah,
he had a couple of American counterparts.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
It's a good point.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
And little known fact. Joe 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 2 (21:38):
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,
(21:59):
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 1 (22:09):
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 2 (22:25):
Oh yeah, good point.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
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
(22:46):
Kubrick's The Shining who tells Jack Torris the ropes. That's
the first guy to ever play James Bond.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Wow? Was he English?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
No?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
American?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yes, CBS TV series.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
So we've had a Scotsman's quite a few Englishmen, an
American and an Australian And what what do you mean Australian?
I mean someone from Australia. That was George Lazenby was Australian?
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Was it? You know what happened to him? Well, he
wasn't much of an actor. 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 and released on Her Majesty's Secret Service, Right,
he was like, holy Colm, James Bond and I'm going
to buy a boat and sail around the world for
(23:30):
a while. And he came back and his star had
already faded because he did one thing and that was that.
Oh really yeah, yeah, he kind of blew it. He
wasn't much of an actor either, It wasn't but it
wasn't just that. It was yeah, it was a combination
of those two things.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
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 Flemings like this is hard, dude.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Wow. Yeah, because Fleming wrote the Bond character much darker.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, the novel character for sure.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Like Roger Moore took it in a very awful director
specific direction. You know that was not the least bit
like how Ian Fleming had written them.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
You're the ultimate Roger Moore apologist. He's good in the
Saint and that's why I got the role, I think. Okay,
the TV show The 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. Right, well they did. They did
(24:32):
a pilot though on TV as well.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
That's the Barry Nelson one. Oh it was called Casino
Royale though no, right, it was based on Casino Royal Climax, Okay,
which I think you know how they used to do
like they would they would have the name of the series,
but then there 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. Okay, I think it was like
(24:56):
that and that flopped and I didn't know what they
were doing with TV back in the day.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
They had no idea.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Doctor NOA 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 in other things what he Allen played him for
Heaven's Sake.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah, yeah, in the parody he did of Casino Royale. Yeah,
there's also an unofficial Bond film with an official Bond right,
let's hear it, Never Say Never Again.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yeah, that was Conrie's That was also fraught with the lawsuits.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
You know, that was based on the Thunderball lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah, they remade Thunderball, right, and.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
They named 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.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
One, two, three, four, five, and then George Lazenby then
he came back and did Diamonds or Forever.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
And then after after that Kime 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, Sean Connery makes another Bond film.
(26:22):
That's what we were kids, twelve years after the last
one he'd made.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, right, and yeah, Kim Beasinger was the Bond checking
that one.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
She was and they called it never Say Never Again
because he'd said that he would never play Bond again.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Never Trebek That's what he said, right, Timothy Dalton, I
guess we might as well venture into his years.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
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 2 (26:50):
They were pretty good living daylights and licensed to kill.
They were both are they good. Really, Yeah, I mean
it was definitely a more novelistic Bond, like he was
darker and 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
(27:13):
thought should have been Bond before Dalton, Pierce Brosnan for one, two, three,
four films, right, and then they went the inevitable direction
with a blond bond with Daniel Craig.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Is that inevitable you think?
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Well, I meant the inevitable way of making him a
tough dude. But yeah, his blondness was not inevitable.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
You know. You make fun of Roger Moore, but he
had a seven picture stint as James Bond.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
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 Connerys, and
then I saw the butt kickingness of Timothy Dalton and
now Daniel Craig, And now I'm kind of like Roger
Moore was kind of a joke to me. Now you
still stand by it?
Speaker 1 (27:54):
I do, all right. I like Roger Moore.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Sam Neil was considered at one point.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
I could see him as James Bond. He was great
and dead calm.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah, that was a good movie.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
You know, I don't know that this even qualifies as
a podcast.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
People canna be like you guys are just kind of
chit chatting, Chuck.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
There's also theories, tons of the best one actually, the
only one I could find really is the code name theory.
Have you heard this?
Speaker 2 (28:25):
I have not cracked.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
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 each actor was playing an actual different person
who had assumed this undercover name James Bond. Really, which
(28:48):
explains the changes in personality. Yeah, it explains why Sean
Connery was so suave and Roger Moore was so goofy. Sure,
explains why Daniel Craig and Timothy Dalton were so violent, right,
It explains a lot of stuff. Actually explains George Lazenbe's
departure because his wife the only time James Bond has
ever been married died in that one honor her Majesty's
(29:12):
Secret Service.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, he had a wife most people don't.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Know, and she was killed by Blofeld. Right, so he
leaves after that. That explains that, right, absolutely. There's actually
holes in that theory.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Do you know them?
Speaker 1 (29:25):
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.
He'd be like, what's his start gun? Right? Exactly right?
And I think the spy who loved me, Roger Moore
is recognized from his college days at Cambridge as James Bond,
(29:48):
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, m I six do co dot
uk or James bondwiki dot com. Those are some good sites.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I'm going to retrack my Roger more bashing a little bit. Okay,
I actually liked like four out of seven of his films.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Okay, see, so you're right.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
I forget sometimes I forget about the awesomeness of Live
and Let Die and Man with a Golden Gun for
your Eyes Only. Those are all pretty good. It was
like Octopussy, Moonraker was really silly, does not age well
at all, and uh, you do a kill? I just
can't get behind him.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
You do a kill is awesome. What about the Spy
who Loved Me? That's the one with the greater water lotus?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah? Yeah, great, great movie.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
And I have one last fact. Are you ready? Oh yeah,
the legendary Bond producer co producer Albert Cubby Broccli. Yeah,
his family invented broccoli. They crossed cauliflower with rabe and
invented broccley. And he actually left the family farm to
go to Hollywood to pursue his fortune when he was
like eighteen.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Are you making this up?
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I am not.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
He invented broccoli.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
His family did is like parents, grandparents. That's a pretty
good fact, Rockley, very cool.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Good for him. They're in trouble now though, because MGM
is in trouble.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
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 2 (31:16):
Oh, it'll happen at some point, but it's like fine, Yeah,
it's being delayed big time though, because MGM's and over
their heads financially.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
If you know anything about MGM, if you're an insider, MGM,
we want to hear from you. Let us know what's
going on with Bond.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
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
(31:51):
equally attracted to both. Like Grace Jones, Yeah, he's attracted
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
(32:11):
go ahead and ask you what your favorite Bond girl is.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
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 Orcid no Law and Order
reruns on A and E. 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
(32:35):
to class to day, I'm just gonna watch Law and Order.
And she was on a lot of them. Yeah, she
would be my favorite Bond girl.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yeah, you know, plenty o tool An.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Ryder, pussy Galore, uh, actually Solitaire, Jane Seymour, she was
pretty good and Living let Die like that.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
She was actually a really good actor. Okay.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Moonraker of course had a holly goodhead and a view
to a kill. I had Tanya Rarts as Stacy Sutton.
They didn't even give her a cool.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Name, So, Chuck, what's the best Bond theme song? Well,
let me take a wild guess.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
I'm gonna say Live and Let Die is probably my favorite.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Because I would have put a thousand dollars on that or.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
What's her name? Carly Simon, spy who loved me? Nobody
does it better?
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Love that song best Bond theme song. If it's not
You Do a Kill? Okay, if it's not that, it
is Nancy Sinatra singing You Only Live Twice?
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Yeah, that was awesome. Yes it was Shirley Bassie. Just
another little factoid.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
She did.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
No, she did more than that. She did gold Finger,
she did Diamonds or Forever, she did Moonraker, Moon Raker's
that's three total. I was also a big fan of
She and Easton's For Your Eyes Only. Yes, she did
go and readA Coolidge all time high from Octopussy.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Didn't Tom Jones do Thunderball or something?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
He did?
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
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 1 (34:32):
Garbage did the one for World Is Not Enough?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Oh okay, Pierce Brosnan, Yeah, and Sheryl Crowe did one,
did she really?
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:41):
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 1 (34:49):
Up next is Miley Cyrus. Oh God, say it ain't
so fond twenty three?
Speaker 2 (34:55):
What else do we have here?
Speaker 1 (34:57):
This is the podcast that won't die, No I do.
It's like James Bond, It just goes on.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
I do have a couple of more facts.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Okay, Well, first of all, before.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
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.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Yeah, it's very titillating and arousing and arousing for a
young boy named Chuck. I'm titillated and aroused.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
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 1 (35:31):
Right. They call it a cold opening, Buddy, a cold opening.
Uh huh. That's very nice.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
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 it? What would you say is the highest
grossing Bond film of all time adjusted.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Gross adjusted gross? I would say Casino Royale, No.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Top two all time Thunderball and gold Finger. You're a
liar adjusted gross.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
You know, Casino Royale worldwide knitted like almost six hundred
million dollars so far.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
A bunch of money. Thunderball and Goldfinger did more, did
they really? Yeah? Thunderball and nineteen sixty five dude, gross
to one hundred and forty one million dollars?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
What and is that worldwide or us?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
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 gross one hundred and forty one million.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Right, But what I'm saying is Casino Royale gross six
hundred million?
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Well, I mean, yeah, that's not an adjusted gross though
you can't compare.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
You're figuring inflation in Yeah, that's what it's called an
adjusted gross.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
And that's about it. I mean, we could say the
cars he used real quickly, the Aston Martin obviously.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
My favorite is the Lotus, the Lotus.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
The Alpha Romeo and then that new Audi that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Do you like the Audi?
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah it looks awesome, Okay, but missed the Lotus in
the fact that it could also be a submarine.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
And lastly, Chuck, I would like to say to all
the kids of our generation, if you ever noticed a
similarity between Inspector Gadget and James Bond, you were dead on.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Yeah you think so?
Speaker 1 (37:17):
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 fandom. You can check out our website by
typing James Bond brings up a bunch of stuff in
the handy search bar. And now, if you can believe it,
(37:39):
it is time for listener mail.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
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, kendo and ayado. 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
(38:07):
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 bokung in Japanese. Yes,
(38:32):
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. Bokan
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 dude.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Owyh uh coving smacked to death.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Well, he says instead of cutting someone's heads off, he
would brain them, which I guess means like the skull
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 1 (39:14):
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 an email. Don't
forget to spank it on a bottom and maybe serve
it a dry martini shaken not stirred. Address it too.
(39:38):
Stuff podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com. Want more house stuff works, check out
our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home
page
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Josh Clark
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