Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. High with me is Charles
Speaker 1: w Chuck Bryant. Bryant, Charles Bryant, How is it going? Chuck?
Speaker 1: It's an odd way to introduce yourself, don't you think
Speaker 1: not if you're a superspy? Are you a super spy? Actually?
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say James Bond was even a spy secret service?
Speaker 1: Is that a spy? Really? You know? He was an
Speaker 1: assassin and just general plot disruptor. I would say he
Speaker 1: was a blunt instrument of the crown. Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: wanted the job done and you couldn't if you didn't
Speaker 1: have time to worry about you know, the politics or
Speaker 1: you know the diplomacy, that kind the thing you sent
Speaker 1: James Bond. Yeah, get jb on the phone, double a seven,
Speaker 1: he'll he'll take care of business. Like Elvis. You could
Speaker 1: call him on his car phone, long before any car
Speaker 1: had a phone. Yeah, all right. He was always predating technology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, there's a James Bond theory
Speaker 1: of entrepreneurial innovation. I believe that. Uh. And from Russia
Speaker 1: with Love nineteen sixty three, he talked I can't remember
Speaker 1: who he talked to, but he was in his car
Speaker 1: using the phone. Yeah, that was in his car, and
Speaker 1: audiences went nuts for it. Oh yeah, they were like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, he's on the telephone right in a car.
Speaker 1: But that's what they sounded like in England though, Oh yeah, sure, Ghana.
Speaker 1: Uh so, Josh, where do we start here? We can't,
Speaker 1: we can't not start with Ian Fleming. Ian Fleming, so
Speaker 1: we gotta start. Let's do it. No, that was there
Speaker 1: was a colon after that. Oh and I mean Colin
Speaker 1: was as everyone knows. And if you didn't, you need
Speaker 1: to get out from under your rock that you reside
Speaker 1: in right now. The creator of James Bond in novel form.
Speaker 1: He was also originally a journalist and a stockbroker, and uh,
Speaker 1: World War two starts to come around and he joins
Speaker 1: the Naval Naval Volunteer Royal Navy, Royal Navy UM and
Speaker 1: he was actually Chuck did you know, assigned as a
Speaker 1: spy himself in Washington, d C. Yeah, sort of a
Speaker 1: spy you could call it he um. He was an
Speaker 1: intelligence and he would occasionally he was an administrative guy,
Speaker 1: but sometimes they would send him out to do field
Speaker 1: work where he would take secret pictures of documents, just
Speaker 1: like in the movies. Do you know who was assigned
Speaker 1: to his spy unit James Bond? Yeah, No, there was
Speaker 1: a guy who was in race room for James Bond.
Speaker 1: His name was William Stevenson, a k intrepid, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: one of many inspirations. Right, but in night In an
Speaker 1: interview in The Times in the nineteen sixty two, Fleming said,
Speaker 1: you know, James Bond is this romanticized version of a spy.
Speaker 1: Bill Stevenson is the real thing himself to an extent. Sure.
Speaker 1: Another member of that spy ring was a guy named
Speaker 1: Roald Dahl who wrote James and Giant Peach and Charlie
Speaker 1: and the Chocolate Factory and a bunch of body books. Right.
Speaker 1: He also had the non children's books that were a
Speaker 1: little racier. Yes, not many people know that. So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit more about Ian Fleming. Give
Speaker 1: it to us, buddy, Yeah, I mean, he, like I said,
Speaker 1: he was, he's sort of James based James Bond on
Speaker 1: kind of I think who he wanted to be. He
Speaker 1: was a playboy. He was an island hopper, an adventurer,
Speaker 1: an adventurer, a skier. He dove with Jock Cousto and uh,
Speaker 1: you know Snowski from the Tops of Mountains in Switzerland
Speaker 1: had a place in Jamaica where he actually wrote all
Speaker 1: these books. Right. He he named the place Goldennye. And
Speaker 1: every year he would go to Jamaica and write a book.
Speaker 1: And I just want to dig him up and throttle
Speaker 1: him for that, because I mean, what a what a life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's time for me to go to my
Speaker 1: estate in Jamaica and write a book that's going to
Speaker 1: just make me millions more. Yeah, which he did. And uh.
Speaker 1: He reportedly picked the name James Bond because he wanted
Speaker 1: the most boring name he could find for his super
Speaker 1: secret agent. I think he didn't want the name to
Speaker 1: compete with the actual character, Like why bother giving him
Speaker 1: some fancy name, just seeing him James Bond and have
Speaker 1: him kick butt right. You know what the opposite of
Speaker 1: that is Hex saw Jim Duggan. Yeah, he should have
Speaker 1: named him that. Yeah, well, then it would have competed
Speaker 1: with the character Doug in hack saw Jim Doug. I
Speaker 1: could hear that. Um, so yeah, he wrote see the
Speaker 1: articles says thirteen novels. Well, he wrote thirteen books. I
Speaker 1: got fourteen. What's the fourteen? Well, I've got twelve novels
Speaker 1: plus two short story collections for Your Eyes Only and
Speaker 1: Octopusy in the Living Daylights was another collection. So it
Speaker 1: seems like it'd be easier to find this out. But
Speaker 1: I literally saw two different sets of information. So are
Speaker 1: we gonna go with fourteen? Because you are quite the sniffer.
Speaker 1: Let's let's go with fourteen total, twelve novels, right, But
Speaker 1: he wrote, Um, I think he wrote the novels first,
Speaker 1: or did he write the short story books like in between? Yeah?
Speaker 1: They were, they were in between. They were towards the end,
Speaker 1: but he was getting fat and lazy in Jamaica. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Interestingly though, or maybe it's not that interesting. They made
Speaker 1: the movies way out of order. Yeah they did. Uh.
Speaker 1: The Doctor Know was the first m but that was
Speaker 1: the sixth novel, right, but did you know that they
Speaker 1: originally the people who made the official Bond movies originally
Speaker 1: wanted to make Thunderball. Thunderball was a story that Ian
Speaker 1: Fleming came up with with another guy who UM, who
Speaker 1: wanted the rights to make a movie out of it.
Speaker 1: That fell through, but Ian Fleming went ahead and wrote
Speaker 1: the story anyway that they came up with his Thunderball.
Speaker 1: The guy sued his pants off and actually gained custody,
Speaker 1: gained the rights to the book Thunderball, which tied it up,
Speaker 1: and UM made them up for Doctor No to Go
Speaker 1: first instant. There was a lot of litigation over the
Speaker 1: years in the Bond franchise. I guess when you have
Speaker 1: a franchise that long and that vast, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: people suing people over something. Well, plus it's a legendary
Speaker 1: he's a legendary character, and you know he's made a
Speaker 1: lot of money for a lot of people. Absolutely. Uh.
Speaker 1: The other interesting thing I thought just before we move
Speaker 1: on was that Moonraker was written in nine. That was
Speaker 1: the third novel that is insightful and of so there
Speaker 1: wasn't a space shuttle like they changed the setting and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, but it did involve like a nuclear weapon,
Speaker 1: so you know, kind of odd and Uh. The Man
Speaker 1: with the Golden Gun, which was the uh. Roger Moore's
Speaker 1: second film was the final novel and it was released
Speaker 1: after his death. Huh, so it was way out of order.
Speaker 1: And in that one he predicted Harvey Vache, which nobody
Speaker 1: saw coming except Ian Fleming, you know, right, Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about James Bond a little bit, the character
Speaker 1: James Bond. So, um, it turns out James Bond had
Speaker 1: a Scottish father, which he didn't originally. Now that came
Speaker 1: about because of Sean Connery. Yeah. Ian Fleming was not
Speaker 1: a big fan of Sean Connery first, and then Sean
Speaker 1: Connery was like, check this out and he made one
Speaker 1: peck go up while the other went down a bunch
Speaker 1: of times, and Ian Fleming just like clapped and squealed
Speaker 1: and that was that. Right. Um, he was a big fan,
Speaker 1: and he said, you know what you are, James Bond.
Speaker 1: And um, he actually went back and changed James Bond's
Speaker 1: history to kind of Matt Sean Connery a little bit
Speaker 1: because he came to see like, this guy is Bond, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So he gave James Bond to Scottish father Andrew in
Speaker 1: a Swiss mother, Monique Delacroix and nice, and they both
Speaker 1: died Mountain climbing right, Yes, when little James was eleven
Speaker 1: years old, Um, he went to the orphanage, and he
Speaker 1: went to an orphanage. He was supposedly born on November eleventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty, but there are different accounts of his birthday
Speaker 1: and when he was born. And clearly when you have
Speaker 1: a franchise with Daniel Craig playing him in two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: he can't be born in nineteen Yeah, because the exhibition
Speaker 1: wasn't showing in in Miami and nine anything. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a sliding scale there obviously to make it viable.
Speaker 1: But Um James, much like his author namesake Ian Fleming,
Speaker 1: not namesake Magan Change Bond, much like the author e
Speaker 1: in Flaming was Um went to the Royal Navy in
Speaker 1: World War Two, rose to the rank of commander after
Speaker 1: the war. That's when he entered the s I S
Speaker 1: known as m I six, which is the sixth branch
Speaker 1: of the Military Intelligence Directorate. You got that, buddy, right,
Speaker 1: And his first two assignments, Chuck, were two TAPS assassinations
Speaker 1: right off the bat. So he that's apparently you have
Speaker 1: to kill two people to get a double O status,
Speaker 1: which is the license to kill and he got them,
Speaker 1: like you said right off the bat, Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: was the seventh dude to get him. So that's where
Speaker 1: double O seven comes from. The seventh agent, which shouldn't
Speaker 1: say dude because there they were. Were there female agents? Yeah?
Speaker 1: There were female agents. I'm pretty sure. Uh. And we
Speaker 1: should probably take the time here to explain I like
Speaker 1: James Bond. I know that you like James Bond movies too.
Speaker 1: Is this the disclaimer we're gonna get killed here? Um?
Speaker 1: We are not members of James Bond fandom. I would say,
Speaker 1: all right, I mean I've seen all the movies, but no,
Speaker 1: I haven't studied the books. I've never read any of
Speaker 1: the books. I don't think I've seen all the movies,
Speaker 1: and um, but I do like them in a very
Speaker 1: recreational manner. So that being said, we are not going
Speaker 1: to get every single thing right here if we're going
Speaker 1: to walk right past information that we just don't know exists.
Speaker 1: So in a very friendly manner, if there is anything
Speaker 1: that you have to say that can round this podcast
Speaker 1: out even further, the more, we love knowing new things
Speaker 1: that that's so please let us know, I guess is
Speaker 1: what we're saying right. Oh, they'll let us know except
Speaker 1: for the like three dudes that just turned it off
Speaker 1: into well, they have no business even attempting this name.
Speaker 1: And then they go give us a one star rating
Speaker 1: on iTunes. So back to Bond. He um as we
Speaker 1: all know as a sharp dresser, and he loves fast cars,
Speaker 1: he loves his more martini shaking that stirred. He loves women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And do you know if you shake a Martin instead
Speaker 1: of stirring it, you pretty much ruin it. I disagree.
Speaker 1: I shake all my martinis, dude, how does it ruin it? It?
Speaker 1: Um feathers it? I think, what does that mean? It
Speaker 1: means it's screwed up? What does that mean? I like
Speaker 1: a good dirty martini myself. Oh you like him dirty gross?
Speaker 1: I said, word. I like my martinis so light. It's
Speaker 1: basically a vodka rox. So you just like the vermouth
Speaker 1: bottle just waved near the glass pretty much. I like
Speaker 1: just a little vermouth, little olive juice. But no, i'live
Speaker 1: no olive juice. I'll put in all. I'll put three,
Speaker 1: all of us in usually really all right, But then
Speaker 1: I eat them so fast that they have no time
Speaker 1: to taint the Martini. Well, that's why you're not a
Speaker 1: super spy. So Josh James Bond a couple of the
Speaker 1: other traits we should just mention. He is a martial artist.
Speaker 1: He's a gifted man with his fist and feet. Or
Speaker 1: if you're Roger Moore, a Roddy chop Yeah, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a big deal in the seventies. And he
Speaker 1: um carried a famously carried at Walter p p K
Speaker 1: handgun thirty two caliber. And that's a little guy. Have
Speaker 1: you ever seen him? They're small And I've played gold nine,
Speaker 1: played best game. Just played Golden nine. It is a
Speaker 1: great game. Yeah, and you know they're bringing that back
Speaker 1: for we I've heard Matt Frederick of the Coolest Stuff
Speaker 1: on the Planet told us that they are bringing that
Speaker 1: back because it's still sort of the standard for first
Speaker 1: person shooters. Like fifteen years on, it's still a great game.
Speaker 1: So they're bringing it back as is, like completely as
Speaker 1: it was, but with better graphics. That's going to be
Speaker 1: fantastic for the WEI. Yeah, pretty exciting. Back to the
Speaker 1: real life of the Fake life of James Bond. That's
Speaker 1: how we should have titled this podcast The Real Life
Speaker 1: of the fake life. How about let's talk about some
Speaker 1: of the enemies. Dr. No. He was the first one
Speaker 1: to appear in the films Dr Julius. Now he's an
Speaker 1: atomic scientist. Yeah, he was clearly. Joseph Wiseman played him,
Speaker 1: and he was a great, great villain Goldfinger. You can't
Speaker 1: talk about Bond without talking about Goldfinger. He was You
Speaker 1: don't like him, No, not really. That was a big
Speaker 1: Goldfinger guy. He tried to laser the crotch of James Bond.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's pretty hardcore. It's like Max Scorpio yea.
Speaker 1: In that Simpsons were oh yeah, we're ends up going
Speaker 1: to work for the super villain, right, Yeah, he's like, no,
Speaker 1: Mr Bond, I expect you to die. Should be a
Speaker 1: very cheap funeral. Uh. Odd job was one of my favorite.
Speaker 1: And he was one of Goldman's hinchman in the big
Speaker 1: Asian guy with the bowler hat that he could cut
Speaker 1: like the head off a statue his hat. Yeah, very
Speaker 1: big dude. Jaws we grew up with Roger Moore, so
Speaker 1: you can't not talk about Jaws. No, he was great too.
Speaker 1: He was in two of them, right. He was in
Speaker 1: Moonraker and The Spy who loved me. I thought he
Speaker 1: might have been more than that, but he definitely I
Speaker 1: looked it up. He was only in two to really
Speaker 1: made quite an impression. Yeah, he did. He found the
Speaker 1: girlfriend in Moonbraker, I think falls in love or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the little like nerdy girl. And then he pops up
Speaker 1: again in Happy Gilmore. Was he in that? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: didn't see that. Yeah, he was Happy Gilmore's boss, like
Speaker 1: on the construction site and he ends up becoming a fan.
Speaker 1: And did he have the teeth, No, he didn't have
Speaker 1: just for the movie, but he was a big guy. Yes. Uh. Lately,
Speaker 1: we've had more recent villains that I don't think the
Speaker 1: new villains compare personally. They kind of come and go.
Speaker 1: You know. There's like in Um Casino Royale. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they're okay, but they're all yeah that that like
Speaker 1: they're all decent, but they're not like iconic characters like
Speaker 1: they used to be. Yeah. While blow Feld was the
Speaker 1: sort of legendary I don't know how many movies he
Speaker 1: was in, but he was played by like Telly Savalis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Donald Pleasants was my favorite version. He was good and
Speaker 1: Max van Seto played him. I think in uh, never
Speaker 1: say never again. Maybe he's a class act. Yeah, I was,
Speaker 1: what did I watch the other day? Oh, Shutter Island.
Speaker 1: He's in that, and I told I leaned over himily.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, I want to see Max
Speaker 1: van set I'll play like a kindly grandfather in a movie.
Speaker 1: I don't think anytime that dude pops up in the movie,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, well, he's the evil doer. He's the villain.
Speaker 1: You think until Shutter Island falls apart at the end,
Speaker 1: don't ruin it. So, yes, that was Blowfeld. He was
Speaker 1: the bald guy and he was the head of Specter,
Speaker 1: which was the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion.
Speaker 1: That's great villainist title there. That's not only like a
Speaker 1: great name, that's your mission statement. Yeah, you all wrapped
Speaker 1: up in the one um one of my favorites, Max Zoran,
Speaker 1: played by the great Christopher Walkin. He was he was
Speaker 1: the dude. I know you love that movie. One of
Speaker 1: the best bomb movies ever. But that had the worst
Speaker 1: Bond woman ever, Grace Jones. No, Tanya Roberts, I don't
Speaker 1: remember her. She was the Bond girl. I don't remember.
Speaker 1: She was the lady from the seventies show that was
Speaker 1: like one of the late Charlie's Angels replacements. Tanya Roberts. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was the eighties, somebody was paying that much attention.
Speaker 1: But it was a good song. It was and Christopher
Speaker 1: Walking was in it. Grace Jones was in it. She
Speaker 1: was pretty scary in that. Yes, she was excellent. Um,
Speaker 1: talk about a martial artist. Um, but mac dooran Is
Speaker 1: did you know he was the product of genetic experiments
Speaker 1: by Nazis. Walking was well not walking? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't remember that. Yeah, And um, one
Speaker 1: of the unintended side effects was he was a complete psychopath.
Speaker 1: I thought you were gonna say one of the side
Speaker 1: effects was his use of punctuation. You are good man,
Speaker 1: everybody that's walking, I can't do it walking, let's hear it.
Speaker 1: My No, it's really just an altered John Travolta, Why
Speaker 1: are you so weird? That's great, of course, Chuck, there's
Speaker 1: double O six Alec Trevelin. Yeah, what was he? And
Speaker 1: that was one of the Pierce Broston ones, wasn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think yeah, it's I don't remember this. I love
Speaker 1: Pierce Broston like he was good the fact that like
Speaker 1: he wasn't James Bond earlier. He's like, oh, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: gonna cast Timothy Dalton area, Well, I'll go be Remington
Speaker 1: Steel jerks. Yeah, and um they tried to get him again, right,
Speaker 1: and he was committed to Remington Steel, which was sort
Speaker 1: of like James Bond for TV. So did he do
Speaker 1: Remington Steel first? Oh? Yeah, he did Remington Steel. Well,
Speaker 1: it goes back and forth. There was like Timothy Dalton
Speaker 1: was offered the role before Roger Moore. Did you know that? No?
Speaker 1: I didn't. When he was twenty one years old. Really
Speaker 1: he was going to replace Sean Connery and Dalton said,
Speaker 1: I'm too young to play James Bond. And then he
Speaker 1: comes around years later, just like just like Braston did. Okay,
Speaker 1: but I am glad that Pierce Broson went in. I
Speaker 1: just happened to think that those his period of movies
Speaker 1: were unfortunate. I thought they were pretty good. I didn't
Speaker 1: like him. Now I'm really happy with Daniel Craig's stuff
Speaker 1: so far. Well, you know my statement on that is
Speaker 1: that was the only direction they could take that franchise
Speaker 1: after the Jason Bourne movies. You couldn't have a guy
Speaker 1: like winking at the camera like Roger Moore, and like
Speaker 1: slapstick sounds and uh sound effects. You had to take
Speaker 1: him in like a real bad, bad direction. You mean,
Speaker 1: like seem Ohia bade Um so double as six Alec
Speaker 1: trevilin he is. I think he informs the character Alex
Speaker 1: Kreichek from X Files, you think, so, huh, very nice. Alright,
Speaker 1: So those are some of the villains, clearly not all,
Speaker 1: but um, we should also talk about some of the
Speaker 1: people that James Bond had working on his side at
Speaker 1: m I six, right, which we will call from here
Speaker 1: on out the superfluous characters. No, dude, they're great. M
Speaker 1: Q and was the head of m I six and
Speaker 1: there were several ms. It was just a title and
Speaker 1: uh it was the one that's always frustrated with Bond.
Speaker 1: Yet he knows that he's the blunt instrument of choice.
Speaker 1: You know, pretty much in every movie que you should
Speaker 1: say he or she for m Dame Judy Dench took over. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: she's doing a great job too. Uh. Q is the
Speaker 1: head of the que branch, Judy Dench. Did you hear that?
Speaker 1: Chuck just said you were doing a great job. So
Speaker 1: keep it up, Keep it up, Danjerdi Dench Dame Dane,
Speaker 1: Dame Dame, she's the Dame. Q is the head of
Speaker 1: the Q branch. M I six is research and development branch,
Speaker 1: and Q, as you might know, as the guy who
Speaker 1: in all the films, gives James his gadgets. There's always
Speaker 1: that great scene where James goes into the laboratory and
Speaker 1: starts messing around with the gadgets and exasperates Q because
Speaker 1: he's burning something or he's firing a missile inside and
Speaker 1: he shouldn't be. That's QUE. And he's now been replaced
Speaker 1: by his former assistant R. Right now it's our John Kleis. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's doing a good job. But he's the new QUEUE.
Speaker 1: He just used to be R because Q died A right,
Speaker 1: Lee Ellen, Yes, Chuck. That was the actor that played
Speaker 1: the original Q. Was that right? Or the Roger Moore
Speaker 1: key that I loved? Right? Who else? We got Felix Lighter,
Speaker 1: who I like, Jack Lord Jeffrey Wright both played him agent.
Speaker 1: And there's another guy named Hayward Wade. Was he c
Speaker 1: I A. Yeah? I thought they said they didn't know
Speaker 1: if he was d A or c I A. He
Speaker 1: was around before the d A was yeah. Um, and
Speaker 1: then you've got I think Jack Wade is his name,
Speaker 1: and he was actually played by a couple of people
Speaker 1: including Joe Don Baker, Oh yeah, Pierce bros Ones. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: he had a couple of American counterparts. That's a good
Speaker 1: point and a little known fact. Jodan Baker was in
Speaker 1: Oh I can't remember the name of the movie, but
Speaker 1: it was one of the greatest MR Science Theater three thousands. Yeah,
Speaker 1: bad movie. Uh. And then of course we have to
Speaker 1: mention Money Penny. He was M's personal assistant and Money Penny.
Speaker 1: You always knew Money Penny because James would come in
Speaker 1: and flirt very much with her. And I always got
Speaker 1: the sense that if James were ever settled down with anyone,
Speaker 1: which he clearly won't, it would have been Money Penny,
Speaker 1: or at least he made her think that every day
Speaker 1: with Secretary's Day, when James Bond was around, he was
Speaker 1: always just so nice to him, bringing her things from
Speaker 1: his travels, shot glasses and stuff. She had an extensive
Speaker 1: spoon collection, refridgerator, magnets, Chuck, Josh, let's talk about the
Speaker 1: movie show, Yeah, sure, let's talk about James Bond on
Speaker 1: screen because it wasn't necessarily just relegated to the movies.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, good point. So James Bond first appears on
Speaker 1: screen on the small screen on a CBS TV series
Speaker 1: called Clarmax with an exclamation point really yeah uh, And
Speaker 1: he was first played by a guy named Barry Nelson.
Speaker 1: And Barry Nelson you may recognize as Mr Ullman, the
Speaker 1: manager of the Overlook in Kubrick's The Shining who tells
Speaker 1: Jack Torres gropes that's the first guy to ever played
Speaker 1: James Bond. No American, Yes, CBS TV series. So we've
Speaker 1: had a Scotsman, quite a few Englishman, an American and
Speaker 1: an Australian. And what what do you mean Australian? I
Speaker 1: mean someone from Australia. That was George Lazy. He was Australian,
Speaker 1: was it? You know what happened to him? Well, he
Speaker 1: wasn't much of an actor. Well it wasn't just that
Speaker 1: he after the success of his Bond movie. I mean
Speaker 1: he played James Bond and it was you know, filmed
Speaker 1: and produced and released on Her Majesty's Secret Service. He
Speaker 1: was like, holy cown, James Bond, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: buy a boat and sail around in the world for
Speaker 1: a while, and he came back and his star had
Speaker 1: already faded because he did one thing and that was that.
Speaker 1: Really Yeah, he kind of blew it. He wasn't much
Speaker 1: of an actor either. It wasn't but it wasn't just that.
Speaker 1: It was. Yeah, it was a combination of those two things.
Speaker 1: He was a bad dude though, Like he he got
Speaker 1: the role apparently because he impressed Ian Fleming because he
Speaker 1: had a faux fight scene with a wrestler for his
Speaker 1: audition and he actually punched the guy, like got mad
Speaker 1: and punched him, and Flemings like this is hard, dude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because Fleming wrote the Bond character as much darker. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the novel character for sure, Like Roger Moore took it
Speaker 1: in a very awful, direct, specific direction. You know that
Speaker 1: was not the least bit like how Ian Fleming had
Speaker 1: written them. You're the ultimate Roger Moore apologist. I love
Speaker 1: Roger Moore. He's good in The Saint and that's why
Speaker 1: I got the role, I think. Okay, the TV show
Speaker 1: The Saint. Alright, So Chuck, let's get back to the
Speaker 1: beginning again. So we talked about Barry Nelson and on
Speaker 1: the big screen. The first Bond ever was Sean Connery, right,
Speaker 1: and well they did. They did a pilot though on
Speaker 1: TV as well. That's the Barry Nelson one. Oh, it
Speaker 1: was called Casino Royal though. No. Right, it was based
Speaker 1: on Casino Royal Climax, which I think you know how
Speaker 1: they used to do like, um, they would they would
Speaker 1: have the name of the series, but then they're there'd
Speaker 1: be like different, like like Wonderful World of Disney. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like the name of the series, but then
Speaker 1: there were different like documentaries or cartoons or whatever. I
Speaker 1: think it was like that, and that flopped and it
Speaker 1: didn't know what they were doing with TV back and
Speaker 1: then they had no idea. So, yeah, you're right, doctor,
Speaker 1: And that was the first film in nineteen sixty two,
Speaker 1: and there's been twenty two in total now, yes, and
Speaker 1: we're waiting. And that's official Bond films because they parodied
Speaker 1: him and other things played him for Heaven's sake. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in the parody he did of Casino Royal. Um,
Speaker 1: there's also a an unofficial Bond film with an official
Speaker 1: Bond right, let's hear it, never seen never again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was Connery's that was also fraught with the lawsuits.
Speaker 1: You know, that was based on the Thunderball lawsuit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they remade Thunderball, right, and they named it Never Seen
Speaker 1: Never Again because Connery had said after one that he'd
Speaker 1: never played Bond again, because he played Bond what for
Speaker 1: the first like six movies or something like that, one, two, three, four, five,
Speaker 1: And then George Lason by then he came back and
Speaker 1: did Diamonds for Forever, and then after that came Roger Moore. Yes,
Speaker 1: and then Roger Moore had a pretty good run. So
Speaker 1: so Sean Connery stops playing Bond, George lasonby comes along
Speaker 1: does it once leaves, Sean Connery has to come back
Speaker 1: another time. After Sean Connery, they get Roger Moore. In
Speaker 1: the midst of Roger Moore's run, Sean Connery makes another
Speaker 1: Bond film twelve years after the last one he'd made, right,
Speaker 1: And Yeah, Kim Basinger was the vanch and that one
Speaker 1: she was. And they called it never Say Never Again
Speaker 1: because he said that he would never play Bond again.
Speaker 1: Never trebec That's what he said. Timothy Dalton, I guess
Speaker 1: we might as well venture into his years. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: saw those when they first came out like in the theaters,
Speaker 1: and I didn't think anything of them. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they were over my head or whatever, but I
Speaker 1: didn't like them. They were pretty good living Daylights and
Speaker 1: License to Kill they were both, Yeah, I mean they were.
Speaker 1: It was definitely a more novelistic Bond, like he was
Speaker 1: darker and a little more bad dude, and that, I
Speaker 1: mean it might have had something to do with it
Speaker 1: was coming off the heels of Roger Moore in his
Speaker 1: vaudeville act that he brought to Bond and Dalton had
Speaker 1: a two picture run and then was replaced by who
Speaker 1: everyone thought should have been Bond before Dalton, Pierce Brosnan
Speaker 1: for one, two, three, four films, And then they went
Speaker 1: in the inevitable direction with a blond Bond with Daniel Craig.
Speaker 1: Is that inevitable you think? Well, I meant the inevitable
Speaker 1: way of making him a tough dude, But yeah, that
Speaker 1: his blindness was not inevitable. You know. You make fun
Speaker 1: of Roger Moore, but he had a seven picture stint
Speaker 1: is James Bond, Yeah, I mean, and that was our childhood,
Speaker 1: trust me, dude. At the time, I loved it, but
Speaker 1: then when I got older, I revisited all of the
Speaker 1: Sean Connery's and then I saw the butt kicking nous
Speaker 1: of Timothy Dalton and now Daniel Craig, And now I'm
Speaker 1: kind of like Roger Moore was kind of a joke
Speaker 1: to me. You still stand by it? I do, all right.
Speaker 1: I like Roger Moore. Sam Neal was considered. At one
Speaker 1: point I could see him as James Bond. He would
Speaker 1: have been mad. He was great and dead calm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a good movie. You know, I don't know
Speaker 1: that this even qualifies as a podcast. People gonna be like, Wow,
Speaker 1: you guys are just kind of chit chatting, Chuck. There's
Speaker 1: also theories, tons of them. Best one, actually, the only
Speaker 1: one I could find really is the code name theories.
Speaker 1: If you heard this, I have not cracked. Got a
Speaker 1: lot of publicity for it. By um. It's a fan
Speaker 1: theory that basically says James Bond is uh. It's a
Speaker 1: name that goes along with double O seven And there's
Speaker 1: each actor was playing an actual different person who had
Speaker 1: assumed this undercover name James Bond, which explains the changes
Speaker 1: in personality. Uh. It explains why Sean Connery was so
Speaker 1: suave and Roger Moore was so goofy explains why Daniel
Speaker 1: Craig and Timothy Dalton were so violent? Um, it explains
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. Actually explains George Lasonby's departure because
Speaker 1: his wife, the only time James Bond has ever been married,
Speaker 1: died in that one her Majesty's secret Service. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: had a wife, most people don't and she was killed
Speaker 1: by blow Feld, Right, so he leaves after that. That
Speaker 1: explains that, right, there's actually holes in that theory. I
Speaker 1: know a couple like, for example, George lason By recognized
Speaker 1: gadgets that were debuted during Sean Connery's tenure. He was
Speaker 1: a new person, he would it would be new to him.
Speaker 1: He'd be like, what's his start gun? Exactly right? Um
Speaker 1: and uh, I think the spy who loved me Roger
Speaker 1: Moore is recognized from his college days at Cambridge is
Speaker 1: James Bond, which would mean that he was using the
Speaker 1: name before then. But it's still pretty cool theory. If
Speaker 1: you want any cool theory shot down, I recommend you
Speaker 1: go to Commander Bond dot net, am I six dot
Speaker 1: c O dot UK or James Bond wiki dot com.
Speaker 1: Is there some good sites. I'm gonna retract my Roger
Speaker 1: Moore bashing a little bit. I actually liked like four
Speaker 1: out of seven of his films. Okay, let's see, so
Speaker 1: you're right. I forget sometimes I forget about the awesomeness
Speaker 1: of Live and Let Die in Man with a Golden
Speaker 1: gun for your eyes only. Those are all pretty good.
Speaker 1: It was like octopusy Moonraker was really silly, does not
Speaker 1: age well at all, and uh, you would kill I
Speaker 1: just can't get behind me. Kill is awesome? What about
Speaker 1: um the Spy who Loved Me? That's the one with
Speaker 1: the greater water lotus. Yeah? Yeah, great, great movie. Um,
Speaker 1: And I have one last factor you ready. The legendary
Speaker 1: Bond producer co producer Albert Cubby Broccoli. His family invented broccoli.
Speaker 1: They crossed cauliflower with rabe and invented broccoli. And he
Speaker 1: actually left the family farm to go to Hollywood to
Speaker 1: pursue his fortune when he was like eighteen. Are you
Speaker 1: making this up? I am not. He invented broccoli. His
Speaker 1: family did his like parents, grandparents. That's a pretty good fact.
Speaker 1: Brocc very cool. Good for him. They're in trouble now though,
Speaker 1: because MGM is in trouble. Yeah, but they're saying like
Speaker 1: it's just a blip on the radar. If you listen
Speaker 1: to any anybody who's attached to the Bond twenty three, Oh,
Speaker 1: it'll happen at some point. But they're like it's fine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's being delayed big time though, because m g ms
Speaker 1: and over their heads financially. If you know anything about MGM,
Speaker 1: if you're an insider MGM, we want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Let us know what's going on with Bond. That's funny,
Speaker 1: we should. We gotta talk about Bond girls. That's one
Speaker 1: of the hallmarks of Bond films. And uh, usually there's
Speaker 1: two Bond girls. At least there's like a hot villain
Speaker 1: and like a hot uh an aid that helps him
Speaker 1: out in some way. Sometimes she turns out to be
Speaker 1: a villain. But there's usually two Bond girls and he's
Speaker 1: equally attracted to both. Like Grace Jones, Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: attracted to her for some reason. Uh. They're film fatales.
Speaker 1: Like I said, Bond cannot help but fall for them,
Speaker 1: even though they it might mean he has to eventually
Speaker 1: kill them after he makes sweet love to them. Right,
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna go ahead and ask you what your
Speaker 1: favorite Bond girl is. I just um recently realized that
Speaker 1: Carrie Lowell was a Bond girl, and I used to
Speaker 1: have the biggest crush on her when I would watch
Speaker 1: um no, uh Law and Order reruns and yeah, they
Speaker 1: used to show like Law and Order for like eight
Speaker 1: hour blocks on A and E. And I'd be like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to class that I'm just gonna watch
Speaker 1: Law and Order. And she was on a lot of them,
Speaker 1: and she she would be my favorite Bond girl. I'm
Speaker 1: going with Ursula Andrews. Yeah, she was hot dude back
Speaker 1: in the day. She played honey Rider. And that's another
Speaker 1: hallmark of the Bond women is they usually had really
Speaker 1: awful names that hinted its sexual innu window. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: plenty Otool, honey Rider, pussy Galore. Uh, actually Solitaire, Jane Seymour,
Speaker 1: she was pretty good in Leaving Let Die like that.
Speaker 1: She was actually a really good actor. Uh. Moonraker of
Speaker 1: course had a holly good head and a view to
Speaker 1: a kill. Had Tanya Roberts as Stacy Sutton. They didn't
Speaker 1: even give her a cool name. So, chok, what's the
Speaker 1: best Bond theme? Song. Well, let me take a wild
Speaker 1: guess I'm gonna say live and let Die. It's probably
Speaker 1: my favorite thousand dollars on that or um, what's her name?
Speaker 1: Carly Simons? Why who Loved Me? Nobody does it better?
Speaker 1: I love that song, dude, best Bond theme song. If
Speaker 1: it's not okay, if it's not that, it is Nancy
Speaker 1: Sinatra seeing You Only Live Twice? Yeah, that was awesome.
Speaker 1: Guess it was. Um. Shirley Bassie just another little factory
Speaker 1: to know. She did more than that. She did Goldfinger,
Speaker 1: she did Diamonds for Forever, she did Moonraker, Moon Raker.
Speaker 1: That's that's three total. I was also a big fan
Speaker 1: of she in Easton's For Your Eyes Only and read
Speaker 1: a Coolidge all time high from Octopussy. Didn't Tom Jones
Speaker 1: do Thunderball or something? He did? Yeah? He did Thunderball.
Speaker 1: And since we're talking about the songs that have really
Speaker 1: gotten lame in recent years, like the Chris Cornell Onen
Speaker 1: and Garbage, you probably didn't even remember they did songs.
Speaker 1: Garbage did the one for um World is not Enough, okay.
Speaker 1: Pierce Brosdon and Cheryl Crowe did one did she Really? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And Madonna did one, and and now it's gotten to
Speaker 1: the point where they're just like, like like the last one,
Speaker 1: they put Jack White with Alicia Keys, Next is Miley Cyrus.
Speaker 1: Oh god, So what else do we have here? This
Speaker 1: is the podcast that won't die. No, I do have
Speaker 1: Like James Bond, it just goes on. I do have
Speaker 1: a couple of more facts. Okay, Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: before we move on, if we're gonna talk about the songs,
Speaker 1: we need to talk about the opening sequences, the title sequences.
Speaker 1: When you're a young Baptist boy and there are naked,
Speaker 1: silhouetted women jumping on trampolines, it's very titilating and arousing
Speaker 1: and arousing for a young boy named Chuck, imated and aroused.
Speaker 1: And then the opening sequence of the films typically is
Speaker 1: some awesome action scene and then the title sequence comes up.
Speaker 1: There will be like a seven minute action scene, right.
Speaker 1: They call it a cold opening, Buddy, cold opening. Uh huh.
Speaker 1: That's very nice. And I just got a couple of
Speaker 1: more facts where you Josh, and then I'll let you
Speaker 1: put this to bed with what would you say is
Speaker 1: the highest grossing Bond film of all time adjusted gross
Speaker 1: adjusted gross? I would say Casino Royal No. Top two
Speaker 1: all time Thunderball and Goldfinger. You're a liar. Adjusted gross,
Speaker 1: you know, Cassino Royal worldwide knitted like, oh well, almost
Speaker 1: six hundred million dollars so far a bunch of money.
Speaker 1: Thunderball and Goldfinger did more. Yeah, Thunderball in nineteen sixty five, dude,
Speaker 1: gross to a hundred and forty one million dollars and
Speaker 1: that is that worldwide or US that's worldwide, and that
Speaker 1: is close to what License to Kill gross in Night
Speaker 1: nine that grows like a hundred and fifty something and Thunderball,
Speaker 1: you know, thirty years more gross to hundred and forty
Speaker 1: one million, right, But what I'm saying is Casino Royal
Speaker 1: gross six hundred million. Well, I mean, yeah, that's not
Speaker 1: an adjusted gross stow. You can't compel. And yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what it's called an adjusted gross. And that's about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, we could say the cars he used real
Speaker 1: quickly to aston Martin. Obviously, my favorite is the Lotus,
Speaker 1: the Lotus alph Romeo and then that new Audie that's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Do you like the Audie? Yeah, it looks awesome,
Speaker 1: But I do miss the Lotus and the fact that
Speaker 1: it could also be a submarine. And lastly, Chuck, I
Speaker 1: would like to say to all the kids of our generation,
Speaker 1: if you ever noticed the similarity between Inspector Gadget and
Speaker 1: James Bond, you were dead on. Yeah you think so?
Speaker 1: All right, So that's about it. If you want to
Speaker 1: know more about James Bond, Um, Like I said, there
Speaker 1: are three at least three really good websites for um
Speaker 1: all things Bond them. You can check out our website
Speaker 1: by taping James Bond brings up a bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: in the handy search bar. And now, if you can
Speaker 1: believe it, it is time for listener mail. Yes, Josh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this samurai stuff from Thomas Guys. I'm
Speaker 1: a total samurai geek. I practiced Japanese sword based martial
Speaker 1: arts kendo and aido. I've read all this material about
Speaker 1: samurai and your podcast was a very good introduction, and
Speaker 1: I thank you for it. However, I am kind of
Speaker 1: surprised you did not mention the greatest Samurai of all time,
Speaker 1: Miyamoto Musashi. This guy was the epitome of everything samurai
Speaker 1: were supposed to be. A dedicated sivant, a poet, a painter,
Speaker 1: a calligrapher, a philosopher, a general, and an all round
Speaker 1: but kicking killer. Not only did he write the Book
Speaker 1: of Five Rings, he also killed sixty men in single
Speaker 1: combat before age forty, not to mention all the guys
Speaker 1: he killed in warfare. At one point in your podcast
Speaker 1: you talked about the wooden katana called both kung in Japanese. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was a practice sword, Josh, but it was also
Speaker 1: a weapon in its own right. Because Japan is such
Speaker 1: a wet climate, swords were sometimes destroyed by rust. Bolkan
Speaker 1: were cheap and easy to replace, and Musashi was famous
Speaker 1: for winning some of his greatest battles with the wooden sword.
Speaker 1: Ow I know, can you imagine dude, yeah, getting smacked
Speaker 1: to death. Well, he says instead of cutting someone's heads off,
Speaker 1: he would brain them, which I guess means the skull
Speaker 1: until their brains come out. Um. Also, he was a
Speaker 1: big fan of using two swords at one time, sometimes
Speaker 1: to katana, sometimes the short and the long, whatever it
Speaker 1: took to do the job. You guys, Rocket love your show.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for the Samurai show from Thomas. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you Thomas for the extra information. As I said, we
Speaker 1: are always interested in knowing everything we possibly can about
Speaker 1: a subject. So if you have anything to tell us
Speaker 1: about James Bond that we missed, that we got wrong,
Speaker 1: that we need to know, we want to hear it,
Speaker 1: wrap it up and send it in any mail. Don't
Speaker 1: forget to spank it on the bottom and maybe serve
Speaker 1: it a dry martini shaking not stirred. Address it to
Speaker 1: stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
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