What's the deal with Bond, James Bond?

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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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. High with me is Charles

(00:21):
w Chuck Bryant. Bryant, Charles Bryant, How is it going? Chuck?
It's an odd way to introduce yourself, don't you think
not if you're a superspy? Are you a super spy? Actually?
I wouldn't say James Bond was even a spy secret service?
Is that a spy? Really? You know? He was an

(00:42):
assassin and just general plot disruptor. I would say he
was 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 the thing you sent
James Bond. Yeah, get jb on the phone, double a seven,

(01:05):
he'll he'll take care of business. Like Elvis. You could
call him on his car phone, long before any car
had a phone. Yeah, all right. He was always predating technology. Yeah,
as a matter of fact, there's a James Bond theory
of entrepreneurial innovation. I believe that. Uh. And from Russia
with Love nineteen sixty three, he talked I can't remember

(01:28):
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. Oh yeah, they were like,
oh my god, he's on the telephone right in a car.
But that's what they sounded like in England though, Oh yeah, sure, Ghana.
Uh so, Josh, where do we start here? We can't,

(01:51):
we can't not start with Ian Fleming. Ian Fleming, so
we gotta start. Let's do it. No, that was there
was a colon after that. Oh and I mean Colin
was as everyone knows. And if you didn't, you need
to get out from under your rock that you reside
in right now. The creator of James Bond in novel form.

(02:14):
He was also originally a journalist and a stockbroker, and uh,
World War two starts to come around and he joins
the Naval Naval Volunteer Royal Navy, Royal Navy UM and
he was actually Chuck did you know, assigned as a
spy himself in Washington, d C. Yeah, sort of a

(02:36):
spy you could call it he um. He was an
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. Do you know who was assigned
to his spy unit James Bond? Yeah, No, there was

(02:58):
a guy who was in race room for James Bond.
His name was William Stevenson, a k intrepid, right, yeah,
one of many inspirations. Right, but in night In an
interview in The Times in the nineteen sixty two, Fleming said,
you know, James Bond is this romanticized version of a spy.
Bill Stevenson is the real thing himself to an extent. Sure.

(03:24):
Another member of that spy ring was a guy named
Roald Dahl who wrote James and Giant Peach and Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory and a bunch of body books. Right.
He also had the non children's books that were a
little racier. Yes, not many people know that. So, Chuck,
let's talk a little bit more about Ian Fleming. Give

(03:45):
it to us, buddy, Yeah, I mean, he, like I said,
he was, he's sort of James based James Bond on
kind of I think who he wanted to be. He
was a playboy. He was an island hopper, an adventurer,
an adventurer, a skier. He dove with Jock Cousto and uh,
you know Snowski from the Tops of Mountains in Switzerland

(04:05):
had a place in Jamaica where he actually wrote all
these books. Right. He he named the place Goldennye. 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, it's time for me to go to my
estate in Jamaica and write a book that's going to

(04:29):
just make me millions more. Yeah, which he did. And uh.
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 seeing him James Bond and have

(04:50):
him kick butt right. You know what the opposite of
that is Hex saw Jim Duggan. Yeah, he should have
named him that. Yeah, well, then it would have competed
with the character Doug in hack saw Jim Doug. I
could hear that. Um, so yeah, he wrote see the
articles says thirteen novels. Well, he wrote thirteen books. I

(05:13):
got fourteen. What's the fourteen? Well, I've got twelve novels
plus two short story collections for Your Eyes Only and
Octopusy in the Living Daylights was another collection. So it
seems like it'd be easier to find this out. But
I literally saw two different sets of information. So are
we gonna go with fourteen? Because you are quite the sniffer.
Let's let's go with fourteen total, twelve novels, right, But

(05:37):
he wrote, Um, I think he wrote the novels first,
or did he write the short story books like in between? Yeah?
They were, they were in between. They were towards the end,
but he was getting fat and lazy in Jamaica. Yeah.
Interestingly though, or maybe it's not that interesting. They made
the movies way out of order. Yeah they did. Uh.

(05:57):
The Doctor Know was the first m but that was
the sixth novel, 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 UM, who
wanted the rights to make a movie out of it.

(06:18):
That fell through, but Ian Fleming went ahead and wrote
the story anyway that they came up with his Thunderball.
The guy sued his pants off and actually gained custody,
gained the rights to the book Thunderball, which tied it up,
and UM made them up for Doctor No to Go
first instant. There was a lot of litigation over the
years in the Bond franchise. I guess when you have

(06:38):
a franchise that long and that vast, there's gonna be
people suing people over something. Well, plus it's a legendary
he's a legendary character, and you know he's made a
lot of money for a lot of people. Absolutely. Uh.
The other interesting thing I thought just before we move
on was that Moonraker was written in nine. That was
the third novel that is insightful and of so there

(07:00):
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 Uh. The Man
with the Golden Gun, which was the uh. Roger Moore's
second film was the final novel and it was released
after his death. Huh, so it was way out of order.

(07:22):
And in that one he predicted Harvey Vache, which nobody
saw coming except Ian Fleming, you know, right, Yeah, it's weird.
Let's talk about James Bond a little bit, the character
James Bond. So, um, it turns out James Bond had
a Scottish father, which he didn't originally. Now that came

(07:43):
about because of Sean Connery. Yeah. Ian Fleming was not
a big fan of Sean Connery first, and then Sean
Connery was 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. Um, he was a big fan,
and he said, you know what you are, James Bond.

(08:05):
And um, he actually went back 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 to Scottish father Andrew in
a Swiss mother, Monique Delacroix and nice, and they both
died Mountain climbing right, Yes, when little James was eleven

(08:27):
years old, Um, he went to the orphanage, and he
went to an orphanage. He was supposedly born on November eleventh,
nineteen twenty, but there are different accounts of his birthday
and when he was born. And clearly when you have
a franchise with Daniel Craig playing him in two thousand eight,
he can't be born in nineteen Yeah, because the exhibition

(08:47):
wasn't showing in in Miami and nine anything. So yeah,
there's a sliding scale there obviously to make it viable.
But Um James, much like his author namesake Ian Fleming,
not namesake Magan Change Bond, much like the author e
in Flaming was Um went to the Royal Navy in
World War Two, rose to the rank of commander after

(09:10):
the war. That's when he entered the s I S
known as m I six, which is the sixth branch
of the Military Intelligence Directorate. You got that, buddy, right,
And his first two assignments, Chuck, were two TAPS assassinations
right off the bat. 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,

(09:32):
like you said right off the bat, Yeah, and he
was the seventh dude to get him. So that's where
double O seven comes from. The seventh agent, which shouldn't
say dude because there they were. Were there female agents? Yeah?
There were female agents. I'm pretty sure. Uh. And we
should probably take the time here to explain I like

(09:53):
James Bond. I know that you like James Bond movies too.
Is this the disclaimer we're gonna get killed here? Um?
We are not members of James Bond fandom. I would say,
all right, I mean I've seen all the movies, but no,
I haven't studied the books. I've never read any of
the books. I don't think I've seen all the movies,

(10:14):
and um, 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 that we just don't know exists.
So in a very friendly manner, if there is anything
that you have to say that can round this podcast

(10:36):
out even further, the more, we love knowing new things
that that's so please let us know, I guess is
what we're saying right. Oh, they'll let us know except
for the like three dudes that just turned it off
into well, they have no business even attempting this name.
And then they go give us a one star rating
on iTunes. So back to Bond. He um as we
all know as a sharp dresser, and he loves fast cars,

(10:59):
he loves his more martini shaking that stirred. He loves women. Yeah,
And do you know if you shake a Martin instead
of stirring it, you pretty much ruin it. I disagree.
I shake all my martinis, dude, how does it ruin it? It?
Um feathers it? I think, what does that mean? It
means it's screwed up? What does that mean? I like

(11:19):
a good dirty martini myself. Oh you like him dirty gross?
I said, word. I like my martinis so light. It's
basically a vodka rox. 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, i'live
no olive juice. I'll put in all. I'll put three,
all of us in usually really all right, But then

(11:42):
I eat them so fast that they have no time
to taint the Martini. Well, that's why you're not a
super spy. So Josh James Bond a couple of the
other traits we should just mention. He is a martial artist.
He's a gifted man with his fist and feet. Or
if you're Roger Moore, a Roddy chop Yeah, oh yeah, yeah,

(12:03):
that was a big deal in the seventies. And he
um carried a famously carried at Walter p p K
handgun thirty two caliber. And that's a little guy. Have
you ever seen him? They're small And I've played gold nine,
played best game. Just played Golden nine. It is a
great game. Yeah, and you know they're bringing that back

(12:24):
for we I've heard Matt Frederick of the 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, it's still a great game.
So they're bringing it back as is, like completely as
it was, but with better graphics. That's going to be
fantastic for the WEI. Yeah, pretty exciting. Back to the

(12:46):
real life of the Fake life of James Bond. That's
how we should have titled this podcast The Real Life
of the fake life. How about let's talk about some
of the enemies. Dr. No. He was the first one
to appear in the films Dr Julius. Now he's an
atomic scientist. Yeah, he was clearly. Joseph Wiseman played him,

(13:09):
and he was a great, great villain Goldfinger. You can't
talk about Bond without talking about Goldfinger. He was You
don't like him, No, not really. That was a big
Goldfinger guy. He tried to laser the crotch of James Bond.
Oh yeah, that's pretty hardcore. It's like Max Scorpio yea.
In that Simpsons were oh yeah, we're ends up going

(13:31):
to work for the super villain, right, Yeah, he's like, no,
Mr Bond, I expect you to die. Should be a
very cheap funeral. Uh. Odd job was one of my favorite.
And he was one of Goldman's hinchman in the big
Asian guy with the bowler hat that he could cut
like the head off a statue his hat. Yeah, very
big dude. Jaws we grew up with Roger Moore, so

(13:52):
you can't not talk about Jaws. No, he was great too.
He was in two of them, right. He was in
Moonraker and The Spy who loved me. I thought he
might have been more than that, but he definitely I
looked it up. He was only in two to really
made quite an impression. Yeah, he did. He found the
girlfriend in Moonbraker, I think falls in love or something. Yeah,
the little like nerdy girl. And then he pops up
again in Happy Gilmore. Was he in that? Yeah? I

(14:15):
didn't see that. Yeah, he was Happy Gilmore's boss, like
on the construction site and he ends up becoming a fan.
And did he have the teeth, No, he didn't have
just for the movie, but he was a big guy. Yes. Uh. Lately,
we've had more recent villains that I don't think the
new villains compare personally. They kind of come and go.

(14:36):
You know. There's like in Um Casino Royale. Yeah, I
mean they're okay, but they're all yeah that that like
they're all decent, but they're not like iconic characters like
they used to be. Yeah. While blow Feld was the
sort of legendary I don't know how many movies he
was in, but he was played by like Telly Savalis. Yeah,

(14:58):
Donald Pleasants was my favorite version. He was good and
Max van Seto played him. I think in uh, never
say never again. Maybe he's a class act. Yeah, I was,
what did I watch the other day? Oh, Shutter Island.
He's in that, and I told I leaned over himily.
I was like, you know, I want to see Max
van set I'll play like a kindly grandfather in a movie.

(15:18):
I don't think anytime that dude pops up in the movie,
you're like, oh, well, he's the evil doer. He's the villain.
You think until Shutter Island falls apart at the end,
don't ruin it. So, yes, that was Blowfeld. He was
the bald guy and he was the head of Specter,
which was the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion.

(15:41):
That's great villainist title there. That's not only like a
great name, that's your mission statement. Yeah, you all wrapped
up in the one um one of my favorites, Max Zoran,
played by the great Christopher Walkin. He was he was
the dude. I know you love that movie. One of
the best bomb movies ever. But that had the worst

(16:02):
Bond woman ever, Grace Jones. No, Tanya Roberts, I don't
remember her. She was the Bond girl. I don't remember.
She was the lady from the seventies show that was
like one of the late Charlie's Angels replacements. Tanya Roberts. Yeah, yeah,
it was the eighties, somebody was paying that much attention.
But it was a good song. It was and Christopher

(16:22):
Walking was in it. Grace Jones was in it. She
was pretty scary in that. Yes, she was excellent. Um,
talk about a martial artist. Um, but mac dooran Is
did you know he was the product of genetic experiments
by Nazis. Walking was well not walking? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't I don't remember that. Yeah, And um, one

(16:44):
of the unintended side effects was he was a complete psychopath.
I thought you were gonna say one of the side
effects was his use of punctuation. You are good man,
everybody that's walking, I can't do it walking, let's hear it.
My No, it's really just an altered John Travolta, Why

(17:05):
are you so weird? That's great, of course, Chuck, there's
double O six Alec Trevelin. Yeah, what was he? And
that was one of the Pierce Broston ones, wasn't it. Yeah?
I think yeah, it's I don't remember this. I love
Pierce Broston like he was good the fact that like
he wasn't James Bond earlier. He's like, oh, yeah, you're

(17:26):
gonna cast Timothy Dalton area, Well, I'll go be Remington
Steel jerks. Yeah, and um they tried to get him again, right,
and he was committed to Remington Steel, which was sort
of like James Bond for TV. So did he do
Remington Steel first? Oh? Yeah, he did Remington Steel. Well,
it goes back and forth. There was like Timothy Dalton
was offered the role before Roger Moore. Did you know that? No?

(17:48):
I didn't. When he was twenty one years old. Really
he was going to replace Sean Connery and Dalton said,
I'm too young to play James Bond. And then he
comes around years later, just like just like Braston did. Okay,
but I am glad that Pierce Broson went in. I
just happened to think that those his period of movies
were unfortunate. I thought they were pretty good. I didn't

(18:09):
like him. Now I'm really happy with Daniel Craig's stuff
so far. 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 uh sound effects. You had to take
him in like a real bad, bad direction. You mean,

(18:33):
like seem Ohia bade Um so double as six Alec
trevilin he is. I think he informs the character Alex
Kreichek from X Files, you think, so, huh, very nice. Alright,
So those are some of the villains, clearly not all,
but um, we should also talk about some of the

(18:54):
people that James Bond had working on his side at
m I six, right, which we will call from here
on out the superfluous characters. No, dude, they're great. M
Q and was the head of m I six and
there were several ms. It was just a title and
uh it was the one that's always frustrated with Bond.

(19:16):
Yet he knows that he's the blunt instrument of choice.
You know, pretty much in every movie que you should
say he or she for m Dame Judy Dench took over. Yeah, man,
she's doing a great job too. Uh. Q is the
head of the que branch, Judy Dench. Did you hear that?
Chuck just said you were doing a great job. So
keep it up, Keep it up, Danjerdi Dench Dame Dane,

(19:39):
Dame Dame, she's the Dame. Q is the head of
the Q branch. M I six is research and development branch,
and Q, as you might know, as 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

(20:01):
he's burning something or he's firing a missile inside and
he shouldn't be. That's QUE. And he's now been replaced
by his former assistant R. Right now it's our John Kleis. Yeah, yeah,
he's doing a good job. But he's the new QUEUE.
He just used to be R because Q died A right,
Lee Ellen, Yes, Chuck. That was the actor that played

(20:22):
the original Q. Was that right? Or the Roger Moore
key that I loved? Right? Who else? We got Felix Lighter,
who I like, Jack Lord Jeffrey Wright both played him agent.
And there's another guy named Hayward Wade. Was he c
I A. Yeah? I thought they said they didn't know
if he was d A or c I A. He

(20:43):
was around before the d A was yeah. Um, 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 bros Ones. Yeah yeah,
he had a couple of American counterparts. That's a good
point and a little known fact. Jodan Baker was in
Oh I can't remember the name of the movie, but

(21:05):
it was one of the greatest MR Science Theater three thousands. Yeah,
bad movie. Uh. And then of course we have to
mention Money Penny. He was M's personal assistant and Money Penny.
You always knew Money Penny because James would come in
and flirt very much with her. And I always got
the sense that if James were ever settled down with anyone,

(21:26):
which he clearly won't, it would have been Money Penny,
or at least he made her think that every day
with Secretary's Day, when James Bond was around, he was
always just so nice to him, bringing her things from
his travels, shot glasses and stuff. She had an extensive
spoon collection, refridgerator, magnets, Chuck, Josh, let's talk about the

(21:46):
movie show, Yeah, sure, let's talk about James Bond on
screen because it wasn't necessarily just relegated to the movies.
Oh yeah, good point. So James Bond first appears on
screen on the small screen on a CBS TV series
called Clarmax with an exclamation point really yeah uh, And

(22:07):
he was first played by a guy named Barry Nelson.
And Barry Nelson you may recognize as Mr Ullman, the
manager of the Overlook in Kubrick's The Shining who tells
Jack Torres gropes that's the first guy to ever played
James Bond. No American, Yes, CBS TV series. So we've
had a Scotsman, quite a few Englishman, an American and

(22:31):
an Australian. And what what do you mean Australian? I
mean someone from Australia. That was George Lazy. He was Australian,
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. He

(22:55):
was like, holy cown, James Bond, and I'm going to
buy a boat and sail around in the world for
a while, and he came back and his star had
already faded because he did one thing and that was that.
Really 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.
He was a bad dude though, Like he he got

(23:16):
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. Yeah,
because Fleming wrote the Bond character as much darker. Yeah,
the novel character for sure, Like Roger Moore took it
in a very awful, direct, specific direction. You know that

(23:38):
was not the least bit like how Ian Fleming had
written them. You're the ultimate Roger Moore apologist. I love
Roger Moore. He's good in The Saint and that's why
I got the role, I think. Okay, the TV show
The Saint. Alright, 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,

(24:01):
and well they did. They did a pilot though on
TV as well. That's the Barry Nelson one. Oh, it
was called Casino Royal though. No. Right, it was based
on Casino Royal Climax, which I think you know how
they used to do like, um, they would they would
have the name of the series, but then they're there'd
be like different, like like Wonderful World of Disney. Yeah,
it was like the name of the series, but then

(24:22):
there were different like documentaries or cartoons or whatever. I
think it was like that, and that flopped and it
didn't know what they were doing with TV back and
then they had no idea. So, yeah, you're right, doctor,
And that was the first film in nineteen sixty two,
and there's been twenty two in total now, yes, and
we're waiting. And that's official Bond films because they parodied

(24:44):
him and other things played him for Heaven's sake. Yeah,
and in the parody he did of Casino Royal. Um,
there's also a an unofficial Bond film with an official
Bond right, let's hear it, never seen never again. Yeah,
that was Connery's that was also fraught with the lawsuits.

(25:07):
You know, that was based on the Thunderball lawsuit. Yeah,
they remade Thunderball, right, and they named it Never Seen
Never Again because Connery had said after one that he'd
never played Bond again, because he played Bond what for
the first like six movies or something like that, one, two, three, four, five,
And then George Lason by then he came back and

(25:28):
did Diamonds for Forever, and then after that came Roger Moore. Yes,
and then Roger Moore had a pretty good run. So
so Sean Connery stops playing Bond, George lasonby 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

(25:51):
Bond film twelve years after the last one he'd made, right,
And Yeah, Kim Basinger was the vanch and that one
she was. And they called it never Say Never Again
because he said that he would never play Bond again.
Never trebec That's what he said. Timothy Dalton, I guess
we might as well venture into his years. Yeah, I

(26:14):
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. They were pretty good living Daylights and
License to Kill they were both, Yeah, I mean they were.
It was definitely a more novelistic Bond, like he was
darker and a little more bad dude, and that, I
mean it might have had something to do with it

(26:34):
was coming off the heels of Roger Moore in his
vaudeville act that he brought to Bond and Dalton had
a two picture run and then was replaced by who
everyone thought should have been Bond before Dalton, Pierce Brosnan
for one, two, three, four films, And then they went
in the inevitable direction with a blond Bond with Daniel Craig.

(26:55):
Is that inevitable you think? Well, I meant the inevitable
way of making him a tough dude, But yeah, that
his blindness was not inevitable. You know. You make fun
of Roger Moore, but he had a seven picture stint
is James Bond, 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 Connery's and then I saw the butt kicking nous

(27:17):
of Timothy Dalton and now Daniel Craig, And now I'm
kind of like Roger Moore was kind of a joke
to me. You still stand by it? I do, all right.
I like Roger Moore. Sam Neal was considered. At one
point I could see him as James Bond. He would
have been mad. He was great and dead calm. Yeah,
that was a good movie. You know, I don't know
that this even qualifies as a podcast. People gonna be like, Wow,

(27:44):
you guys are just kind of chit chatting, Chuck. There's
also theories, tons of them. Best one, actually, the only
one I could find really is the code name theories.
If you heard this, I have not cracked. Got a
lot of publicity for it. By um. It's a fan
theory that basically says James Bond is uh. It's a

(28:06):
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, which explains the changes
in personality. Uh. It explains why Sean Connery was so
suave and Roger Moore was so goofy explains why Daniel

(28:27):
Craig and Timothy Dalton were so violent? Um, it explains
a lot of stuff. Actually explains George Lasonby's departure because
his wife, the only time James Bond has ever been married,
died in that one her Majesty's secret Service. Yeah, he
had a wife, most people don't and she was killed
by blow Feld, Right, so he leaves after that. That

(28:50):
explains that, right, there's actually holes in that theory. I
know a couple like, for example, George lason By 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? Exactly right? Um
and uh, I think the spy who loved me Roger

(29:13):
Moore is recognized from his college days at Cambridge is
James Bond, which would mean that he was using the
name before then. But it's still pretty cool theory. If
you want any cool theory shot down, I recommend you
go to Commander Bond dot net, am I six dot
c O dot UK or James Bond wiki dot com.

(29:33):
Is there some good sites. I'm gonna retract my Roger
Moore bashing a little bit. I actually liked like four
out of seven of his films. Okay, let's see, so
you're right. I forget sometimes I forget about the awesomeness
of Live and Let Die in Man with a Golden
gun for your eyes only. Those are all pretty good.
It was like octopusy Moonraker was really silly, does not

(29:56):
age well at all, and uh, you would kill I
just can't get behind me. Kill is awesome? What about
um the Spy who Loved Me? That's the one with
the greater water lotus. Yeah? Yeah, great, great movie. Um,
And I have one last factor you ready. The legendary
Bond producer co producer Albert Cubby Broccoli. His family invented broccoli.

(30:20):
They crossed cauliflower with rabe and invented broccoli. And he
actually left the family farm to go to Hollywood to
pursue his fortune when he was like eighteen. Are you
making this up? I am not. He invented broccoli. His
family did his like parents, grandparents. That's a pretty good fact.
Brocc very cool. Good for him. They're in trouble now though,
because MGM is in trouble. Yeah, but they're saying like

(30:41):
it's just a blip on the radar. If you listen
to any anybody who's attached to the Bond twenty three, Oh,
it'll happen at some point. But they're like it's fine. Yeah,
it's being delayed big time though, because m g ms
and over their heads financially. 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. That's funny,

(31:02):
we should. We gotta talk about Bond girls. That's one
of the hallmarks of Bond films. And uh, usually there's
two Bond girls. At least there's like a hot villain
and like a hot uh 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
equally attracted to both. Like Grace Jones, Yeah, he was

(31:25):
attracted to her for some reason. Uh. They're film fatales.
Like I said, Bond cannot help but fall for them,
even though they it might mean he has to eventually
kill them after he makes sweet love to them. Right,
And I'm gonna go ahead and ask you what your
favorite Bond girl is. I just um recently realized that

(31:48):
Carrie Lowell was a Bond girl, and I used to
have the biggest crush on her when I would watch
um no, uh Law and Order reruns and yeah, they
used to show like Law and Order for like eight
hour blocks on A and E. And I'd be like,
I'm not going to class that I'm just gonna watch
Law and Order. And she was on a lot of them,

(32:08):
and she she would be my favorite Bond girl. I'm
going with Ursula Andrews. 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 its sexual innu window. Yeah, you know,
plenty Otool, honey Rider, pussy Galore. Uh, actually Solitaire, Jane Seymour,

(32:35):
she was pretty good in Leaving Let Die like that.
She was actually a really good actor. Uh. Moonraker of
course had a holly good head and a view to
a kill. Had Tanya Roberts as Stacy Sutton. They didn't
even give her a cool name. So, chok, what's the
best Bond theme? Song. Well, let me take a wild

(32:58):
guess I'm gonna say live and let Die. It's probably
my favorite thousand dollars on that or um, what's her name?
Carly Simons? Why who Loved Me? Nobody does it better?
I love that song, dude, best Bond theme song. If
it's not okay, if it's not that, it is Nancy

(33:21):
Sinatra seeing You Only Live Twice? Yeah, that was awesome.
Guess it was. Um. Shirley Bassie just another little factory
to know. She did more than that. She did Goldfinger,
she did Diamonds for Forever, she did Moonraker, Moon Raker.
That's that's three total. I was also a big fan
of she in Easton's For Your Eyes Only and read

(33:43):
a Coolidge all time high from Octopussy. Didn't Tom Jones
do Thunderball or something? He did? Yeah? He did Thunderball.
And since we're talking about the songs that have really
gotten lame in recent years, like the Chris Cornell Onen
and Garbage, you probably didn't even remember they did songs.
Garbage did the one for um World is not Enough, okay.

(34:06):
Pierce Brosdon and Cheryl Crowe did one did she Really? Yeah?
And Madonna did one, and and now it's gotten to
the point where they're just like, like like the last one,
they put Jack White with Alicia Keys, Next is Miley Cyrus.
Oh god, So what else do we have here? This

(34:27):
is the podcast that won't die. No, I do have
Like James Bond, it just goes on. I do have
a couple of more facts. Okay, Well, first of all,
before we move on, if we're gonna 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, it's very titilating and arousing

(34:48):
and arousing for a young boy named Chuck, imated and aroused.
And then the opening sequence of the films typically is
some awesome action scene and then the title sequence comes up.
There will be like a seven minute action scene, right.
They call it a cold opening, Buddy, cold opening. Uh huh.
That's very nice. And I just got a couple of
more facts where you Josh, and then I'll let you

(35:09):
put this to bed with what would you say is
the highest grossing Bond film of all time adjusted gross
adjusted gross? I would say Casino Royal No. Top two
all time Thunderball and Goldfinger. You're a liar. Adjusted gross,
you know, Cassino Royal worldwide knitted like, oh well, almost

(35:31):
six hundred million dollars so far a bunch of money.
Thunderball and Goldfinger did more. Yeah, Thunderball in nineteen sixty five, dude,
gross to a hundred and forty one million dollars and
that is that worldwide or US that's worldwide, and that
is close to what License to Kill gross in Night

(35:51):
nine that grows like a hundred and fifty something and Thunderball,
you know, thirty years more gross to hundred and forty
one million, right, But what I'm saying is Casino Royal
gross six hundred million. Well, I mean, yeah, that's not
an adjusted gross stow. You can't compel. And yeah, that's

(36:13):
what it's called an adjusted gross. And that's about it.
I mean, we could say the cars he used real
quickly to aston Martin. Obviously, my favorite is the Lotus,
the Lotus alph Romeo and then that new Audie that's
pretty cool. Do you like the Audie? Yeah, it looks awesome,
But I do miss the Lotus and the fact that
it could also be a submarine. And lastly, Chuck, I

(36:35):
would like to say to all the kids of our generation,
if you ever noticed the similarity between Inspector Gadget and
James Bond, you were dead on. Yeah you think so?
All right, So that's about it. If you want to
know more about James Bond, Um, Like I said, there
are three at least three really good websites for um

(36:58):
all things Bond them. You can check out our website
by taping James Bond brings up a bunch of stuff
in the handy search bar. And now, if you can
believe it, it is time for listener mail. Yes, Josh,
I'm gonna call this samurai stuff from Thomas Guys. I'm

(37:19):
a total samurai geek. I practiced Japanese sword based martial
arts kendo and aido. 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 everything samurai
were supposed to be. A dedicated sivant, a poet, a painter,

(37:42):
a calligrapher, a philosopher, a general, and an all round
but 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 both kung in Japanese. Yes,
it was a practice sword, Josh, but it was also

(38:04):
a weapon in its own right. Because Japan is such
a wet climate, swords were sometimes destroyed by rust. Bolkan
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, yeah, getting smacked
to death. Well, he says instead of cutting someone's heads off,

(38:24):
he would brain them, which I guess means the skull
until their brains come out. Um. Also, he was a
big fan of using two swords at one time, sometimes
to 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. Well, thank
you Thomas for the extra information. As I said, we

(38:47):
are always interested in knowing everything we possibly can about
a subject. So if you have anything to tell us
about James Bond that we missed, that we got wrong,
that we need to know, we want to hear it,
wrap it up and send it in any mail. Don't
forget to spank it on the bottom and maybe serve
it a dry martini shaking not stirred. Address it to

(39:08):
stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
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(39:32):
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