SYSK’s Summer Movie Playlist: What's the deal with Bond, James Bond?

This is an iHeart podcast.

Living with a rare autoimmune condition comes with challenges, but also incredible strength, especially for those living with conditions like myasthenia gravis or MG and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, otherwise known as CIDP.

Finding empowerment in the community is critical.

Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenix, explores people discovering strength in the most unexpected places.

Listen to untold stories on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees.

Just ask the Capital One Bank Guy.

It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way.

He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast, too.

Thanks, Capital One Bank Guy.

What's in your wallet?

Terms apply.

See Capital One.com/slash bank.

Capital One NA member FDIC.

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 screams summer more than a nice darkened, cool, air-conditioned theater and a great movie playing right in front of you.

So we're going to start the whole thing off with our July 2010 episode on What's the Deal with Bond, James Bond.

Hope you enjoy.

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com.

Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Josh Clark.

Hi.

With me is Charles 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 super spy.

Are you a super spy?

Actually, I wouldn't say James Bond was even a spy.

Secret Service?

Is that a spy, really?

No, he was an 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, diplomacy, that kind of thing.

You sent James Bond.

Yeah.

Get JB on the phone, 007.

Yeah.

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.

Oh, yeah.

He was always predating technology.

Yeah, as a matter of fact, there's a James Bond theory of entrepreneurial innovation.

I believe that.

From Russia with Love, 1963, he talked.

I can't remember who he talked to, but he was in his car using the phone

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.

Well, sure.

Possibly Ghana.

Right.

So, Josh, where do we start here?

We can't not start with Ian Fleming.

Ian Fleming.

That's where we got to start.

Let's do it.

No, there was a colon after that.

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.

He was also originally a journalist and a stockbroker.

And World War II starts to come around, and he joins the

Naval Volunteer.

Royal Navy.

Royal Navy.

And he was actually, Chuck, did you know, assigned as a spy himself in Washington, D.C.?

Yeah, sort of a spy, you could call it.

He was in intelligence, and he would occasionally have, 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.

Well, the guy who was the inspiration for James Bond, his name was William Stevenson, aka Intrepid, right?

Yeah, one of many inspirations.

Right, but

in an interview in the Times in 1962, Fleming said, you know, James Bond is this romanticized version of a spy.

Bill Stevenson is the real thing.

Right.

Well, romanticized version of himself.

To an extent, sure.

Another member of that spy ring was a guy named Rawl Dahl, who wrote James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Yeah, 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.

Like, give it to us, buddy.

Yeah, I mean, like I said, he sort of 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 Jacques Cousteau

and

snow skied from the tops of mountains in Switzerland and had a place in Jamaica where he actually wrote all these books.

Right.

He named the place GoldenEye, and every year he would go to Jamaica and write a book.

And I just want to dig him up and throttle him for that because, I mean,

what a life.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

Oh, it's time for me to go to my estate in Jamaica and write a book that's going to just make me millions more.

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 name him James Bond and have him kick butt.

Right.

You know what the opposite of that is?

Hacksaw Jim Duggan.

Yeah.

He should have named him that.

Yeah.

Well, then it would have competed with the character.

Duggan.

Hacksaw Jim Duggan.

I could hear that.

So, yeah, he wrote.

See, the article says 13 novels.

Well, he wrote 13 books.

I got 14.

What's the 14th?

Well, I've got 12 novels plus two short story collections for your eyes only.

And Octopussy 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.

So are we going to go with 14?

Because you are quite the sniffer.

Let's go with 14 total.

Okay.

12 novels.

All right.

But he wrote,

I think he wrote the novels first, maybe?

Or did he write the short story books like in between?

Yeah, they were in between.

They were toward the end.

Okay.

So when 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.

Doctor No was the first film, 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

wanted the rights to make a movie out of it.

Oh, really?

That fell through, but Ian Fleming went ahead and wrote the story anyway that they came up with as Thunderball.

The guy sued his pants off and actually gained custody, gained the rights to the book, Thunderball, which tied it up and made them opt for Dr.

No to go first instead.

There was a lot of litigation over the years in the Bond franchise.

Yes, there was.

I guess when you have a franchise that long and that vast, there's going to be people suing people over something.

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.

The other interesting thing I thought just before we move on was that Moonraker was written in 1955.

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

The Man with a Golden Gun, which was the

Roger Moore's second film, was the final novel.

And it was released after his death.

Huh.

So it was way out of order.

And in that one, he predicted Herve Village, which nobody saw come in except Ian Fleming.

Yeah.

Right, yeah.

It's weird.

Let's talk about James Bond a little bit.

Okay,

the character James Bond.

So it turns out James Bond had a Scottish father, which he didn't originally.

No, that came about because of Sean Connery.

Yeah, Ian Fleming was not a big fan of Sean Connery

at first.

And then Sean Connery was like, check this out.

And he made one pet go up while the other went down a bunch of times.

And Ian Fleming just like clapped and squealed and that was that right

he was a big fan and he said you know what you are James Bond and

he actually went back and changed James Bond's history yeah to kind of match Sean Connery a little bit because he came to see like this guy is Bond right yeah so he gave James Bond a Scottish father Andrew and a Swiss mother Monique Delacroix and nice yeah and they both died mountain climbing right yes when little James was 11 years old

And he went to the orphanage.

And he went to an orphanage.

He was supposedly born on November 11th, 1920, 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 2008,

he can't be born in 1920.

Yeah, because bodies.

Like the exhibition wasn't showing in in Miami in like 1958 or anything.

So yeah, there's a sliding scale there, obviously, to make it viable.

But James, much like his uh author namesake ian fleming not namesake that would amaze

much like the author ian fleming was um went to the royal navy in world war ii rose to the rank of commander yes after the war that's when he entered the sis

known as mi6 right which is the sixth branch of the military intelligence directorate you got that buddy right and his first two assignments chuck yeah were two taps weren't they 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, like you say, right off the bat.

Yeah, and he was the seventh dude to get them, so that's where 007 comes from.

Right.

The seventh agent, which shouldn't say dude,

because were there female agents?

Yeah, there were female agents.

Okay.

I'm pretty sure.

Oh, and we should probably take the time here to explain.

I like James Bond.

I know that you like James Bond movies, too.

Is this the disclaimer?

Yeah.

We're going to get killed here.

We are not members of James Bond fandom, I would say.

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.

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.

We are going to walk right past information that we just don't know know exists.

So, in a very friendly manner, if there is anything that you have to say that can round this podcast out even further, the more we love knowing new things.

So, please let us know, I guess is what we're saying, right?

Oh, they'll let us know.

They will.

Except for the three dudes that just turned it off and went, well, they have no business even attempting this thing.

Right.

And then they go give us a one-star rating on iTunes.

So, back to Bond.

He, as we all know, is a sharp dresser, and he loves fast cars.

He loves his martini, shaken, not stirred.

He loves women.

Yeah, and do you know if you shake a martini instead of stirring it, you pretty much ruin it?

I disagree.

I shake all my martinis.

Dude.

How does it ruin it?

It

feathers it, I think.

What does that mean?

It means it's screwed up.

What does that mean?

I like a good dirty martini myself.

Oh, you like them dirty?

Oh, yeah.

Gross.

Jared said word.

I like my martinis so light, it's basically just a vodka rocks.

So you just like the vermouth bottle just waved near the glass?

Pretty much.

I like just a little vermouth, a little olive juice, but no olives.

No olive juice.

I'll put three olives in usually.

Really?

Yeah.

All right.

But then I eat them so fast that they have no time to taint the martini.

Well, that's why you're not a super spy.

No.

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 fists and feet.

Or if you're Roger Moore, a karate chop.

Yeah.

He loved the karate chop.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

That was a big deal in the 70s.

And he

carried a, famously carried a Walter PPK handgun, 32 caliber.

Yeah.

And that's a little guy.

Have you ever seen him?

Oh, yeah.

They're small.

And I've played GoldenEye, and I've played Best Game.

I guess I've just played GoldenEye.

It is a great game.

Yeah, and you know, they're bringing that back for Wii.

I've heard.

Matt Frederick of Coolest Stuff on the the Planet told us that they are bringing that back because it's still sort of the standard for first-person shooters, like 15 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.

That's going to be fantastic.

For the Wii.

Yeah.

Pretty exciting.

Back to the real life

of the fake life of James Bond.

That's what we should have titled this podcast.

The real life of the fake life.

Yeah.

You know, everybody, summer's winding down and it's going to be nice to get back into a regular, more fall-like routine, I have to say.

That's right.

And one of the things you can do to help yourself move from summer to fall is to spruce up your place.

And the best place to do that is with Wayfair, Chuck.

That's right.

From bedding and linens to storage solutions for every room in the house, Wayfair is your one-stop shop because you can refresh that workspace with desks, bookcases, office chairs for way less money.

And hey, storage is an issue for just about everybody.

And you can can get storage for every space.

You can store your outdoor furniture, storage for your bathroom, and just basically get organized.

Yeah, plus, don't forget your living room.

They've got seating, rugs, lamps, throw blankets, essentially everything you need to say.

Welcome, Fall.

Welcome back.

So get organized, refreshed, and back to routine for way less.

Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home.

That's w-a-y-f-a-i-r.com.

Wayfair, every style, every home.

Hey, everybody, we want to talk to you about Squarespace.

And in particular, if you have a great idea that you want to sell on the web, well, Squarespace makes it easy to sell access to content on your websites.

That's right.

You can do online courses, you can do blogs, videos, memberships.

You can even earn recurring revenue by gating your content behind a paywall.

Simply set the price and choose whether to charge a one-time fee or a subscription for access.

That's right.

And you can get your content discovered fast with integrated SEO tools.

Every Squarespace website is optimized to be indexed with meta descriptions, an auto-generated sitemap, and more, so you show up more often to more people in global search engine results.

Just go to squarespace.com slash stuff and you can get a free trial.

And when you're ready to launch, use our offer code stuff, S-T-U-F-F, to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain.

Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees.

Just ask the Capital One Bank Guy.

It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way.

He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast, too.

Thanks, Capital One Bank Guy.

What's in your wallet?

Terms apply.

See Capital One.com slash bank.

Capital One NA, member F D I C.

How about, let's talk about some of the enemies.

Dr.

No,

he was the first one to appear in the films.

Dr.

Julius No.

Right.

He's an atomic scientist.

Yeah, he was clearly, Joseph Wiseman played him, and he was a great, great villain.

Goldfinger, you can't talk about Bond without talking about Goldfinger.

Yeah.

You don't like him?

No, not really.

I was a big Goldfinger guy.

Were you?

He tried to laser the crotch of James Bond.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

Pretty hardcore.

Yeah.

It's like Max Scorpio.

Exactly.

In that Simpsons, where

Summer ends up going to work for the super villain.

Right.

Yeah.

He's like, no, Mr.

Bond, I expect you to die and be a very cheap funeral.

Oddjob was one of my favorite, and he was one of Goldman's henchmen.

The big

Asian guy with the bowler hat that he could cut like the head off a statue.

Yeah, he was hat.

He was huge.

Yeah, a very big dude.

Yeah.

Jaws, we grew up with Roger Moore.

So 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...

No, I looked it up.

He was only in two.

Two, really?

Guy made quite an impression.

Yeah, he did.

He found the girlfriend in Moonraker, I think.

Yeah.

And he falls in love or something.

Yeah, the little nerdy girl.

And then he pops up again in Happy Gilmore.

Was he in that?

Yeah.

I didn't see that.

Yeah, he was Happy Gilmore's boss, like on the construction site, and he ends up becoming a fan.

Wow.

Did he have the teeth?

No, he didn't have the teeth.

Just for the movie.

But he was a big guy.

Yes.

Lately, we've had more recent villains that I don't think the new villains compare personally.

No, they kind of come and go.

You know, there's like in

Casino Royale.

Yeah, I mean, they're okay, but they're all.

Yeah, that like they're all decent, but they're not like iconic characters like they used to be.

Right, like Blofeld.

Yeah, well, Blofeld was the

sort of legendary.

I don't know how many movies he was in, but he was played by like Teli Savalis.

Donald Pleasants.

Yeah, Donald Pleasance was my favorite version.

He was good.

And Max Van Sedow played him, I think, in

Never Say Never Again, maybe.

Nice.

Max Van Seidow, he's a class act.

Yeah, what did I watch the other day?

Oh, Shudder Island?

He's in that.

And I leaned over to him and I was like, you know, I want to see Max Van Seidow play like a kindly grandfather in a movie.

I don't think you can solve it up.

Anytime that dude pops up in the movie, you're like, oh, well, he's the evildoer.

Right.

He's the villain.

Or so you think, until Shudder Island falls apart at the end.

Don't ruin it.

Yes, that was Blofeld.

He was the bald guy, and he was the head of Spectre, which was the the special executive for counterintelligence, terrorism, revenge, and extortion.

Right.

It's a great

villainous title there.

That's not only like a great name, it's your mission statement.

Yeah.

You know?

All wrapped up into one.

One of my favorites, Max Zorin, played by the great Christopher Walken.

He was a...

He was the...

Dude, abuse.

I know you love that movie.

One of the best Bond movies ever.

But that had the worst 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 70s show that was like one of the late Charlie's Angels replacements.

Tanya Roberts, yeah.

Yeah, who cares?

It was the 80s.

Nobody was paying that much attention.

But it was a good song.

It was.

And Christopher Walken was in it.

Grace Jones was in it.

She was pretty scary in that.

Yeah, she was excellent.

Talk about a martial artist.

But Max Zorin is.

Did you know he was the product of genetic experiments by Nazis?

Walking was?

Well, not Walking, Max Zorin.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I don't remember that.

Yeah, and one of the unintended side effects was he was a complete psychopath.

I thought you were going to say one of the side effects was his use of punctuation.

You are good, man.

Everybody does walk in.

I can't do a walk-in.

Let's hear it.

No, it's really just an altered John Travolta.

Why are you so weird?

Dude, that's great.

Of course, Chuck, there's 006, Alec Trevlyn.

Yeah.

What was he in?

That was one of the Pierce Brosnan ones, wasn't it?

Yeah.

I think.

Yeah, which I don't remember those.

I love Pierce Brosnan.

Oh, he was good.

The fact that he wasn't James Bond earlier, he's like, oh, yeah, you're going to cast Timothy Dalton, are you?

Well, I'll go be Remington Steele.

Jerks.

Yeah.

And they tried to get him again, right?

I think so.

And he was committed to Remington Steele, which was sort of like James Bond for TV.

Oh, so did he do Remington Steele first?

Oh, yeah, he did Remington Steele.

Well, it goes back and forth.

There was like Timothy Dalton was offered the role before Roger Moore.

Did you know that?

No, I didn't.

When he was 21 years old,

he was going to replace Sean Connery.

Wow.

And Dalton said, I'm too young to play James Bond.

And then he comes around years later,

just like Brosnan did.

Okay.

But I am glad that Pierce Brosnan went in.

I just happen to think that those, his period of movies, movies, were unfortunate.

I thought they were pretty good.

I didn't like them.

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 sound effects.

You had to take him in like a real bad,

bad direction.

Yes.

And you mean like Seemo Haya bad.

Yeah.

So 006, Alec Trevlyn, he is, I think, he informs the character Alex Krajek from X-Files.

You think so, huh?

Very nice, Josh.

Thanks.

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 MI6.

Right, which we will call from here on out the superfluous characters.

No, dude, they're great.

M.

Q.

Yeah.

M was the head of MI6,

and there were several M's.

M 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.

Q.

You should say he or she for M.

Huh, true.

Dame Judy Dench took over.

Yeah, oh man, she's doing a great job, too.

Q is the head of the Q branch.

Judy Dench, did you hear that?

Chuck just said you were doing a great job, so keep it up.

Keep it up, Dane.

Judy Dench.

Dame?

Dane?

Dame.

Dame.

Yeah, she's a Dame.

Q is the head of the Q branch, MI6's 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 a missile inside and he shouldn't be.

That's Q.

Right.

And he's now been replaced by his former assistant, R.

Right.

Now, is R John Cleese?

Yeah.

Yeah, he's doing a good job.

But he's the new Q.

He just used to be R.

Well, because Q died.

Right.

Lou Allen?

Yes, Chuck.

That was the actor that played the original Q.

Is that right?

Or the Roger Moore Q that I loved.

Right.

Who else we got?

Felix Leiter, who I like.

Jack Lord, Jeffrey Wright, both played him.

CIA agent.

And then there's another guy named Hayward Wade.

Was he CIA?

Yeah.

I thought they said they didn't know if he was DEA or CIA.

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 people, including Jodon Baker in the

Pierce Brosnan ones.

Yeah, yeah.

He had a couple of American counterparts.

That's a good point.

And, little known fact, Jodon Baker was in,

I can't remember the name of the movie, but it was one of the greatest Mystery Mystery Science Theater 3000s.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Bad movie?

And then, of course, we have to mention Moneypenny, who 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.

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 and bringing her things from his travels.

Shot glasses and stuff.

Right, spoons.

She had an extensive spoon collection.

Refrigerator magnets.

Chuck.

Josh.

Let's talk about the movie, shall we?

Yeah, sure.

Well, 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 Climax with an exclamation point.

Really?

Yeah.

Wow.

And 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 Torrance the ropes.

That's the first guy to ever play James Bond.

Wow.

Was he English?

No.

American?

Yeah, CBS TV series.

So we've had a Scotsman, quite a few Englishmen, an American, and an Australian.

And what?

What do you mean, Australian?

I mean someone from Australia.

That was George Lazemby, who 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.

Right.

Wow.

He was like, holy cow, I'm James Bond.

And I'm going to buy a boat and sail around the world for a while.

And he came back and his star had already faded because he did one thing, and that was that.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

He kind of blew it.

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 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.

Wow.

Like, got mad and punched him.

And Fleming's like, this is our dude.

Wow.

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 direction.

direction.

Specific direction, you know, that was not the least bit like how Ian Fleming had written them.

You're the ultimate Roger Moore apologist.

I love Roger Moore.

He was good in The Saint, and that's why he got the role, I think.

Okay.

The TV show The Saint.

Sure.

It's a good one.

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?

Yeah, well, they did a pilot, though, on TV as well.

That's the Barry Nelson one.

Oh, it it was called Casino Royale though, no?

Right, it was based on Casino Royale or

Climax.

Okay, which I think, you know how they used to do, like,

they would have the name of the series, but then there'd be like different like Wonderful World of Disney.

Yeah.

It was like the name of the series, but then there were different documentaries or cartoons or whatever.

Okay.

I think it was like that.

And that flopped and it got.

I didn't know what they were doing with TV back in the day.

They had no idea.

So, yeah, you're right.

Doctor No was the first film in 1962, and there's been 22 22 in total.

No?

Yes.

And we're waiting, and that's official Bond films, because they parodied him and other things.

Woody Allen played him, for heaven's sake.

Yeah.

And 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.

Yeah, that was Connery's.

That was also fraught with

lawsuits.

as well.

That was based on the Thunderball lawsuit.

Yeah, they remade Thunderball.

Right.

And they named it Never Say Never Again because Connery had said after 1971 that he'd never play Bond again.

Yeah.

Because he played Bond, what, for the first like six movies?

Something like that?

One, two, three, four, five,

and then George Lazenby.

Then he came back and did Diamonds Are Forever.

And then after that came Roger Moore.

Yes.

And then Roger Moore had a pretty good run.

So Sean 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.

That's when we were kids, too.

12 years after the last one he'd made.

Yeah.

Right?

And yeah.

Kim Basinger was the Bond chick in that one.

Yes, she was.

And they called it Never Say Never Again because he'd said that he would never play Bond again.

Never, Trebek.

Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees.

Just ask the Capital One Bank Guy.

It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way.

He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too.

Thanks, Capital One Bank Guy.

What's in your wallet?

Terms apply.

See Capital One.com slash bank.

Capital One NA, member F D I C.

Let's talk about moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, in adults with obesity.

Doesn't sound familiar?

Think about how you've been sleeping lately.

If you've had nights where you've been told you snore loudly or choke or gasp for air and then wake up feeling tired, it may be due to OSA.

In the U.S., moderate to severe OSA affects around 24 million adults.

Many are adults with obesity, and most cases remain undiagnosed and untreated.

Don't sleep on the symptoms.

Learn more at don't sleeponosa.com.

This information is provided by LillyUSA LLC.

AutoTrader is powered by Auto Intelligence, the hyper-personalized way to buy a car.

AutoTrader's tools sync with your exact budget and preferences to tailor the car shopping experience totally for you.

Yep, budgeting lets you input your info to see listings in your price range.

Search an inventory, help zero in on your dream car.

You can choose from new or pre-owned, the style of the car, and features like engine size, color, all the way down to whether you want a trailer hitch.

Go ahead and get picky.

Yeah, and don't worry about scrolling endlessly.

Auto Trader, powered by Auto Intelligence, only shows you vehicles based on what you can afford and what you want.

And pricing shows you which listings are the best deals.

So you can feel like you're winning the negotiation without negotiating.

You can even choose how to close the deal at home, at the dealership, wherever.

AutoTrader, powered by auto intelligence, makes the process of buying a car less of a process.

Try it today.

Visit auto trader.com to find your perfect ride.

That's what he said.

Right.

Timothy Dalton, I guess we might as well venture into his years.

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.

They were pretty good.

Living Daylights and License to Kill.

They were both.

Are they good, really?

Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a more novelistic Bond.

Like, he was darker and a little more bad dude.

And

it might have had something to do with it that was coming off the heels of Roger Moore and his vaudeville act that he brought to Bond.

And Dalton had a two-picture run and then was replaced by who everyone thought should have been Bond before Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, for one, two, three, four films.

Right.

And then they went the inevitable direction with a blonde Bond

with Daniel Craig.

Is that inevitable, you think?

Well, I meant the inevitable way of making him a tough dude.

But yeah, his blondeness was not inevitable.

You know, you make fun of Roger Moore, but he had a seven-picture stint as James Bond.

Yeah, I mean, and that was our childhood.

Trust me, dude, at the time, I I loved it.

But then when I got older, I revisited all of the Sean Conneries, and then I saw the butt-kickingness of Timothy Dalton and now Daniel Craig, and now I'm kind of like, Roger Moore was kind of a joke to me.

No?

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 wouldn't have been bad.

He was great in Dead Calm.

Yeah, that was a good movie.

You know, I don't know that this even qualifies as a podcast.

People are going to be like,

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 theory.

Have you heard this?

I have not.

Cracked got a lot of

publicity for it.

It's a fan theory that basically says James Bond is

a name that goes along with 007,

and

each actor was playing an actual different person who had assumed this undercover name, James Bond.

Really?

Which explains the changes in personality.

Yeah.

It explains why Sean Connery was so suave and Roger Moore was so goofy.

Sure.

It explains why Daniel Craig and Timothy Dalton were so violent.

Right, right.

It explains a lot of stuff, actually.

It explains George Lazenby's departure because his wife, the only time James Bond has ever been married, died in that one, on Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Yeah, he had a wife.

Most people don't know her.

And she was killed by Blofeld.

Right?

Yeah.

So he leaves after that.

That explains that, right?

Absolutely.

There's actually holes in that theory.

Do you know them?

I know a couple.

Like, for example, George Lazenby recognized gadgets that were debuted during Sean Connery's tenure.

He was a new person.

It would be new to him.

He'd be like, what's his dart guns?

Right.

Exactly.

And I think The Spy Who Loved Me, Roger Moore is recognized from his college days at Cambridge as James Bond, which would mean that he was using the name before then.

But it's still a pretty cool theory.

If you want any cool theory shot down, I recommend you go to commanderbond.net, mi6.co.uk, or jamesbondwiki.com.

Those are some good sites.

I'm going to retract my Roger Moore bashing a little bit.

Okay.

I actually liked like out of seven of his films.

Okay, but see?

So you're right.

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

You Do a Kill.

I just can't get behind that.

You do a Kill is awesome.

What about The Spy Who Loved Me?

That's the one with the Underwater Lotus song.

Yeah, yeah, great, great movie.

And I have one last fact.

Are you ready?

Oh, yeah.

The legendary Bond producer, co-producer, Albert Cubby Broccoli.

Yeah.

His family invented broccoli.

They crossed cauliflower with rabe and invented broccoli, and he actually left the family farm to go to Hollywood to pursue his fortune when he was like 18.

Are you making this up?

I am not.

He invented broccoli?

His family did.

It's like parents.

All right.

Grandparents.

That's a pretty good fact.

Broccoli.

Very cool.

Good for him.

They're in trouble now, though, because MGM is in trouble.

Yeah, but they're saying it's just a blip on the radar.

If you listen to anybody who's attached to the Bond 23, oh, it'll happen at some point, but it's being like, it's fine.

Yeah, it's being delayed big time, though, because MGM's over their heads financially.

If you know anything about MGM, if you're an insider at MGM, we want to hear from you.

Let us know what's going on with Bond.

That's funny.

We've 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 aide 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 attracted to her for some reason.

They're femme fatales.

Like I said, Bond cannot help but fall for them, even though it might mean he has to eventually kill them after he makes sweet love to them.

Right.

And I'm going to go ahead and ask you what your favorite Bond girl is.

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 Orchid.

No,

Law and Order reruns on AE.

They used to show Law and Order for like eight-hour blocks on AE.

And I'd be like, I'm not going to class today.

I'm just going to watch Law and Order.

And she was on a lot of them.

And

she would be my favorite Bond girl.

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 at sexual innuendo.

Yeah.

Plenty of tool.

Honey Rider, Pussy Galore.

Actually, Solitaire, Jane Seymour, she was pretty good in Live and Let Die.

She was actually a really good actor.

Okay.

Moonraker, of course, had Holly Goodhead.

And

A View to a Kill had Tanya Roberts

as Stacey Sutton.

They didn't even give her a cool name.

So, Chuck, what's the best Bond theme song?

Well.

Let me take a wild guess.

I'm going to say Live and Let Die is probably my favorite.

I would have put $1,000 on that.

Or,

what's her name?

Carly Simon, Spy Spy Who Loved Me.

Nobody Does It Better.

Love that song.

Dude.

Best Bond theme song.

If it's not

a kill.

Oh, okay.

If it's not that, it is Nancy Sinatra singing You Only Live Twice.

Yeah, that was awesome.

Yes, it was.

Shirley Bassey, just another little factoid.

She did two.

No, she did more than that.

She did Goldfinger.

She did Diamonds Are Forever.

She did Moonraker.

Moonraker.

That's three total.

I was also a big fan of Sheena Easton's for Your Eyes Only.

Yeah, she did a good one.

And Rita Coolidge, all-time high, for Moctopussy.

Didn't Tom Jones do Thunderball or something?

He did.

Yeah.

He did Thunderball.

Quite a guy.

And since we're talking about the songs that have really gotten lame in recent years, like Chris Cornell one and Garbage, you probably didn't even remember they did songs.

Garbage did the one for

World Is Not Enough.

Oh, okay.

Pierce Brosnan.

Yeah.

And Cheryl Crowe did one.

Did she really?

Yeah.

Well, it is lame.

And Madonna did one.

And now it's gotten to the point where they're just like, like the last one, they put Jack White with Alicia Keys.

Up next is Miley Cyrus.

Oh, God.

Satan ain't so.

Bond 23.

What else do we have here?

This is the podcast that won't die.

No, I do have.

It's like James Bond.

It just goes on.

I do have a couple of more facts.

Okay.

Well, first of all, before you move on, if we're going to talk about the songs, we need to talk about the opening sequences, the title sequences.

When you're a young Baptist boy and there are naked silhouetted women jumping on trampolines, it's very titillating.

And arousing.

And arousing for a young boy named Chuck.

I'm titillated and aroused.

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.

They call that a cold opening, buddy.

A cold opening?

Uh-huh.

It's very nice.

And I just got a couple of more facts for you, Josh, and then I'll let you put this to bed.

All right.

What would you say is the highest-grossing Bond film of all time, Adjusted Gross?

Adjusted Gross, I would say

Casino Royale.

No.

Top two all-time, Thunderball and Goldfinger.

You're a liar.

Adjusted Gross.

You know, Casino Royale worldwide netted like almost $600 million so far.

Bunch of money.

Thunderball and Goldfinger did more.

Did they really?

Yeah, Thunderball in 1965, dude, grossed $141 million.

What?

Is that worldwide or U.S.?

That's worldwide.

Okay.

And that is close to what

License to Kilt grossed in 1989.

That grossed like $150-something.

And Thunderball, you know, 30 years more

grossed $141 million.

Right, but what I'm saying is

Casino Royale grossed $600 million.

Well, I mean, yeah.

That's not an adjusted gross, though.

You can't compare it to the market.

Oh, I see.

You're bringing inflation in.

Yeah, that's why it's called an adjusted gross.

And that's about it.

I mean, we could say the cars he used real quickly, the Aston Martin, obviously.

My favorite is the Lotus.

The Lotus, the Alfa Romeo, and then that new Audi that's pretty cool.

Do you like the Audi?

Yeah, I mean, it looks awesome.

Okay.

But I do miss the Lotus and the fact that it could also be a submarine.

Right.

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 are dead on.

Yeah.

You think so?

Yeah.

Alright, 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, it is time for listener mail

yes Josh I'm gonna call this samurai stuff from Thomas

guys I'm a total samurai geek I practice Japanese sword-based martial arts kendo and a yado 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 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 60 men in single combat before age 40, 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, 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.

Boken 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?

Ow.

God.

Getting smacked to death.

Well, he says instead of cutting someone's heads off, he would brain them.

Which I guess means...

Like you crack their skull open.

Yeah, until their brains come out.

Also, he was a big fan of using two swords at one time, sometimes two katana, sometimes the short and the long, whatever it took to do the job.

You guys rock.

I love your show.

I'm grateful for the Samurai Show from Thomas.

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 the bottom and maybe serve it a dry martini, shaken, not stirred.

Address it to

stuffpodcast at housetuffworks.com.

For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housuffworks.com.

Want more How Stuff Works?

Check out our blogs on the HowStuffWorks.com homepage.

Living with a rare autoimmune condition comes with challenges, but also incredible strength, especially for those living with conditions like myasthenia gravis or MG and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, otherwise known as CIDP.

Finding empowerment in the community is critical.

Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio Production, and Partnership with Argenix explores people discovering strength in the most unexpected places.

Listen to Untold Stories on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Let's talk about moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, in adults with obesity.

Doesn't sound familiar?

Think about how you've been sleeping lately.

If you've had nights where you've been told you snore loudly or choke or gasp for air and then wake up feeling tired, it may be due to OSA.

In the U.S., moderate to severe OSA affects around 24 million adults.

Many are adults with obesity, and most cases remain undiagnosed and untreated.

Don't sleep on the symptoms.

Learn more at don't sleeponosa.com.

This information is provided by LillyUSA LLC.

Introducing new Caesar Warm Bowls, an exciting feeding experience for dogs and pet parents that only takes 10 seconds to prepare in the microwave.

Warm bowls are made with fresh vegetables and real chicken as the number one ingredient and can be served as a complete and balanced meal or used to enhance kibble as a topper.

With culinary flavors and ingredients like slow-cooked chicken, sweet potato, cranberry, and fresh vegetables, warm bowls are an exciting new way for pet parents to elevate everyday meals.

Shop new Caesar Warm Bowls online and in stores today.

This is an iHeart podcast.