Episode 75: James Bond

they're just bumping. Because I was going through the store yesterday and Naomi was like Halloween and I was like what And it was all decked out with Halloween decorations and I was like, all right, have her hang out with her Danny. Yeah. No, she's really into hangs and seeing Halloween stuff. And it's way cooler now because she can vocalize the things that she needs, so it's where it's it's easier to be can wait to take her

to her first real haunted house. I know she's like, she's like definitely got the iffy scaredy cat jeans because like there was a little like plushed which thing that you could put on your porch and it's just like a still thing. And I was like, oh, you want to see it? And I pulled it down and she was in the shopping cart and she like jerked backwards

like what is this what it was? And I was like no when I poked it in the stomach and then she was like, okay, I just I mean that's good though, because kids can be really terrifying when it comes to scary things. One of my friends was telling me that his nephew would just be like the man is back and just like point to nothing. This is this is why I uriously like you. I remember when she was a little she was like she was looking in a corner where there was nothing and smiling and laughs.

I was like, oh, there's that there's a ghostian ancestor or something. Uh seguine in the world is way possible. I'm breaking on. Well. I wanted to be like, you have kids, so you I was about the ghost. I was gonna say, you two at the table have kids, and I do not that. Other voices screenwriter and a good friend of ours, Mark bernardin Hey, you know who I blame for Halloween moving up Starbucks? Like it's all that it's pumpkin spice. Yeah, and like they've been like

marching that up to the end of August. No, you'all gotta slow down. But you're you're a spooky head, right, like you're a horror person. Uh, let's okay. There's there's a dividing line between me and horror which ends at like the Ring. Like before that, like I was totally down for it, like, give me all the evil dads, give me the nightmre, I'm sure he's giving the Halloween's like, give me all that stuff. And then the Ring happened

and I was like not having it. And then after that I turned into like the biggest woos you've ever seen in the world, to the point where like I won't go you a movie in theaters. I went to a birthday party at the at the Alamo Drafthouse over the weekend and they've been having clowns only screenings and I found myself an elevator with like a dozen clowns, and like, have never been more concerned for my well being.

That's so cool though, because at the AMC that I went to to see it, it said no face paint. I'm like, you grinches, don't you even try this? Yeah? Yeah, it's so funny because that's the same. I'm the same way, won't see a scary movie, but now I do. Who Shot You? Which is a movie podcast in there, And now it's time for the second scary movie because I had to see Scary Stories and now I have to go see it, which I'm probably gonna see tomorrow morning. That's the way. Yeah, go in the day save just

like stand outside and like through the door. Yet no, yeah, yeah, I watched the whole movie with like squinted through like tiny eyes. Wow. No, just I'm an omega level was when it comes to that for real, I remember you told me I forgot what you said that you're like going to some haunted experience that you have to do, and I was I literally texted you back and was just like, if you real life is much scarier than

so you're already prepped. You're like, no, I don't, I don't need It's it's odd enough being like brown in America. Everything is scary. Yeah, I don't need to, Like I got my jolly and now you want to just watch a rom com? Yeah, Mark, We've been starting our podcast with what we're geeking out about this week, So what are you seeking out about? Two things that have about.

The first one is um the Terror colon Infanty, Yeah, on on AMC, which I didn't see the first season of Terror, but as I understand, it was a bunch of like, you know, British dudes on a ship in the middle of nowhere, like locked in by ice and there's a monster whatever. This one is about like Japanese interment camps us after like you know, World War two kicks out, you just have to Pearl Harbor and it's all about like there's a ghost haunting these particular people

in this particular time, in this particular place. And it is so culturally specific to what it was like to be a Japanese American when suddenly the country kind of turned against you and the specific so the specifically Japanese thing that's haunting them, you know. And so it's so like just rich and vibrant with texture and and the lived and feeling of this is what is haunting people who now can't escape from where they want to be. It's it's phenomenal. It's so good. The other thing is

this reality show on Netflix called hyper Drive. Have you guys seen this? I've seen the ad. It is like like American and Ja Warrior, except it's with car okay, and also these people own these cars, right, so it's like so it's it's a bunch of like, you know, you gotta go drifter on this track here, and you gotta like drive up and do a jump off this like lip giant cliff that's a balancing beam, and then

you gotta go hit these cones whatever. Every other run is somebody destroying their own like forty dollar car and it's like brothers Lamb beginning to do this crash. And so it's both like the joy of watching really good drivers be very good on the road. It's fast and furious, and then watching like super entitled people wrap there like like prestige elite motor cars around telephone poles. That has

to be such a liability though it totally is. That would terrify me that like every episode someone might die. I mean, they're not gonna like die die, are you sure? They're just going to kind of die and they're just gonna ruin their life. I mean, it's like Nascar because like somebody could die. They never do read but it's just like, oh that guy, he deserves it because they all because there's always like that camera interviews like my name is Billy, blah blah blah blah. Hello, my name

is Finn. I'm from this gun to be whatever, and I've got my fancy God, I'm going to do this thing. I guess the douche bags are always the ones about themselves around trees. Yeah, and it's always like the you know, the the young drifter from Japan who's got his like his dad's dots and that he's tuned up. It's like, man, I'm gonna win this thing, and he wins this thing. Yeah, you know, yes, so I'm here. I'm here for both

of those shows. I'm very different locking into that. Well me, what I'm nerding out about is, uh yeah, I've talked

about Juno before. He's a horror manga writer and artist, and they're actually adapting one of his books into an anime for adult Swim, which you know normally I just said how I don't like scary stuff, but I think Junji stuff is more creepy stuff, except for the Supermodel where that one is terrifying, but it's also funny and terrifying, um, which you know, if if you haven't Juno, one of his stories is this like model that this guy. He's going through this book, this guy and he sees this

woman goes, oh, she's ugly. How is she a model? This is so creepy and she's like he keeps starts having nightmares of this woman and then he like throws the book the magazine away. He's like, oh, man, he's telling his friends about it. They don't believe him, and he uh, He's like, man, uh, I can't you know uh. And he's telling the friends and he's like, I'm gonna find the magazine and he can't find the magazine. It

was like, no, for real. She was horrifying. But they're they're filmmakers, and so they're like they're looking for actresses for their movie and then the lady sends in her head shot and goes, that's that's her. That's the creepy woman.

And then they're they were like, all right, then we'll just cast her, and he's like, no, don't cast her, and it's like and so they do cast her and it's really awkward, and um, they're driving out to the woods for this shot and like one of them makes a joke and like it's like shade towards her, but she doesn't get it, and she laughs, and when she laughs, she opens up her mouth and she has these huge giant teeth and they're like, yo, um did you see that?

And no one else saw it but the guy. He's like, she has giant teeth. They're like, you need to calm down, and it's it's yeah, you just need to calm down, and they're like no, and so like obviously, since they like casted her for a gag, they're not really shooting her. They're focusing on this model that they're real excited about. And she's like, why haven't you taken a photo from me? And they're like, oh, we're gonna get to you. We're

just focusing on her. And then they're like and time passes and they have lunch and they'll go where is our lead actress? And a guy runs up covered in

bloods a guy, yo, she's eating the lead actress. And they go to the woods and she has these giant teeth and she's she's like covered in blood and she goes, well, I guess you can focus on me now because you know, because she's gone, and she just chases them and murders them and it's like the only one of the very few like horror horror Junjieto stories, because normally it's just

like more creepy, kind of Twilight Zone asque stories. But that was the first one that was like, this is terrifying funny, and so I'm excited for that coming to adults. So cool. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, it's definitely. But then he also has a whole book dedicated to his cats, like Wholesome, and it sounds like a cat person to be honest, I love throwing shade whenever I can as a dog person. The thing I'm geeking out about is

a book by Shelby Lorman. She if you follow her on Instagram, you would know her as the account Awards for Good Boys. If you don't, you need to. She has like three followers. I found her. She's so hilarious. The book is Awards for Good Boys, Tales of Dating, Double Standards and Doom. It's where she sarcastically gives awards uh to the most basic things that you should do in a relationship, like didn't man explain the you know first four van Halen vinyls. I just made that up.

But she's great. She's super funny and like everyone I feel like in comedy follows her and it's awesome. So check out her book. I think it just dropped or else I'm just becoming aware of it. But also follow her on Instagram. She's hilarious. Mean to be fair, diver down is the best, really really the only reason I like. I am not you know, I didn't grow up in the eighties, and so I don't Why are you laughing? That's such a specific I didn't grow out, you know,

I'm not old. So people no, I feel people we don't cuss. I'm gonna say they poop on me. I'm not always knowing music from before my generation, but it's difficult to have to know the music of my generation, the music of the generation now, and the music of past generations when it's just not my thing. However, a very kind man I will say, he's a very nice person that I dated is obsessed with Van Halen and so I also named Mark, also named Yeah, let's just

also named Mark. I didn't even say his name. Let's just name him. It's part of the curriculum. Just make all of us learn well. The thing about him. He's so I think like one of his comedy albums had

a reference to it. But also we literally in our apartment had a frame picture of Eddie van Halen, and it was one of those things that he loved them so much that it makes you want to learn about them just because he was so you know, when someone is so passionate that it like oozes out and not like let me teach you about it way, but it's like, this thing gives me so much happiness now, I I feel that I tend to go the other way though, Like my wife is a nut for the grateful dead.

I hate the grateful like with this crazy like burning white out heat of a thousand sons And she's like, you just gotta listen to an album, and I said no, because I don't want. I just don't know every time I'm not even kidding you. Any time that Jump would come on and he of course listens to everything, but like anytime that Jump would come on, he would get excited in the car and like, dude, you have listened to this song for thirty years, how is it still

so exciting to you? And that is the power of Van Halen, for this man, very kind, nice man, and you can just that that's going some documentary. Man, I can have a day like whatever that day is, Man, it's the worst day ever had. You know what, Man, I turn on hotfer Teacher and everything's better suddenly, and it's making me the truest statement about him. Also, this is hilarious, and we'll and we'll move on. But I started doing cryotherapy while we were dating, and he wouldn't

try it. But Eddie van Halen goes to my cryoplace, so all of a sudden that man was in there. And I also think Eddie was trying to undo the years of drugging. It doesn't work. It looks great. He, in my opinion, looks good. Um. But today we're talking about another man, another old white man. It looks pretty good for his age all things considered. Yes, today we are talking about the man the mystery, James Bond. James Bond. Um. So you know we're going to do the nitty gritty

that I always start with. This is the first time the nitty gritty is very chunky, like usually, you know, the nitty gree We just take the kind of synopsis of the subject that kind of launches us into the discussion. But James Bond is it's a lot of gritty and yeah, yeah, so Phil free to jump in. Commander James Bond cmg R n VR is a fictional character created by the British journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in ninety three. So I guess I was not aware that he was first

in novels before the films. Yeah, now he was. He he wrote like Ian Fleming wrote like two or three books that he wrote. Um, I think Casino Royale and like On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Dr No in some version of that order, and and they were kind of like they didn't go anywhere, like they're just gonna hit the marketplace and they just kind of died. And then um it it became like I think it was John F. Kenny did an interview with Playboy magazine back in the day and John F. Kenny was like, my

favorite books are James Bond books. And suddenly became, oh well, if President screws a Lot really likes these books, then there must be something going on in there. And then suddenly, like boom, they became best sellers. Mark, are you telling me that John F. Kennedy was the first influencer. I think so I think I think he tagged up like this, this is a paid post any of the original novel um. I read like five or six of them. Um, they're

shorter than the movies. They are like crazy misogynist. I mean, like that's that is that is they're very much a product of their time in that like James Bond loved Jamaica because Ian Fleming loved Jamaica like he would like he would summer there or winter there or whenever he can go there. And so like reading like gold Finger, which is all set in Jamaica, and you're like, oh, like it's kind of oh yeah, I mean like sure like that we'll go to the Bahamas and that's gonna

be different. But you know, it's just like it becomes he's got like a black buddy who's not really a buddy. He's more like a waiter slash show for a slash valet. And and every woman is kind of disposable, you know, and it's it is, uh, bringing that to the modern era is a challenge, I think is the And and you see these James Bond movies as you go you go back and look at the Sean Connerys, and they still retain that vestige of of old school feelings about

masculinity and femininity. And then you get to Daniel Craig and it's like, listen, you're gonna like have sex with a lady, but it's not going to be as unfortunate as it. Yeah, it seems like as it moved forward in time, it went from the Bond girls to the Bond girl, right, you know, I mean there would still be the like does he have to like sleep with like three women? Like? And there's always like the Bond

girl who dies early to his you know, adventure. I'm really motivated now that now that I can't even remember who she was, but she's dead and now revenge must happen. And then there's like the good Bond Bond girl who manages to survive the adventure so that she can then sleep with James Bond before the closing credits. Ah, that's the way that goes, which is not enlightened. Yeah. Just

a couple of things about Ian Fleming who created him. So, he was a naval intelligence officer and while working for Britain's Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, Fleming was involved in planning Operation Golden I so we can see where that came from. Also didn't know that the first Bond novel was Casino Royal, and that is actually my favorite Bond film. Really. Have you seen both versions

of Casino Royal? Oh I didn't see the original? Yeah? No, the original is weird because it was men with Daniel Craig. Yeah no, yeah, the original was like, there's James Bond is played by David Niven, I think, and then there's Jimmy Bond, who's played by Woody Allen. Oh boy, yeah, no, this was the whole thing. I thought this was gonna be. When you said Jimmy Bond, I thought it was I thought this was like apa man. No, I thought this was an aquaman, an aqua. Lads, here's my boy, Jimmy.

Can you go get him jim Bond. Yeah, no, it's it's not good. Okay. So Casino Royal dropped. The novel dropped April nineteen fifty three, So that was the first one. That was the first James Bond novel. Um and so Fleming ended up writing twelve Bond novels in two short story collections, his final two being The Man with the Golden Gun and came out in and octoples to see Still Wild name I had Still Still Wild and the

Living Daylights that came out in nineteen sixty six. They they used to and I think they might still do. They would always have premiers of those movies in London and like Royal Albert Hall, and it was always a thing where like the Queen and the Prince would come to the screenings because it was a whole like it's it's the biggest character that that ever came out of Britain. You know. I think maybe Harry Potter might now be like number two when they might be fighting for number

one at some point. But it was a national event when a Bond movie would come out. And so the in Goldfinger, they there's a character and gold Finger named pussy Galore and so and they were very concerned about whether or not they would like, can we put this

movie out with this character in pussy Galore? And then when the Queen saw the movie and then went to like the Broccolis who produced these movies, really look good character pussy Galore, Like we got the Queen to say pussy Galore in and like Octopussy is the name that the Queen had to say, and I remember reading some interview with Daniel Craig being somewhat concerned that the Queen who would still go see Bond movies by the time you got to casino Royale is going to watch him

get bashed in the nuts over and old held again. But the Queen's watched my bollocks smashed in. I remember that scene. Um, so I left to the left. Speaking of James Bond, can you talk a little bit about his his character? Um, I mean James Bond, Is he is a well also that name, sorry because that's not his name, right, Well, it kind of is, it kind

of is. There's there's two theories. The theory is that like every every actor who comes in and place, James Bond is playing the same guy, right, Like it's Sean Connery and then it's it's George Lasenby, and then it's Roger Moore, and then it's um Pierce Brosen and then there was Timothy to be Dalton in there for a second. They're just playing the same character as it goes. Or there's the idea that James Bond is a code name, like James Bond is that that goes with the double

O seven identity. Like there's there's nine agents who have a license to kill, of which Double O seven is James Bond is just one of them. And so every time James Bond dies, somebody else takes that identity and then moves on and does the things Revere doctor who in that way, Um, But James Bond is uh. He was an orphan. He was raised sort of, you know, in in in something feeling like luxury but not quite um. He joined the military young age, because that's kind of

what at least in this world orphans do. Um rose up the ranks and then was sort of a blunt instrument like he He was never like the spyiest spy ever. He was never like I'm going to wear those awesome suit and infiltrate because I almost shoot a bunch of

people and maybe punch him in the face a lot. Um. And so he gets recruited into the into the Special Service, which is the Double O Section, which there's one guy named m who kind of calls all the missions, and there's a guy in him Q who's his quartermaster and gives him all of his weapons and dud dads and whatever, and there was the the executive assistant who was always called secretary, name his Moneypenny, who would always be his

sort of like in house flirtation lady. And and then he would he would always he would start on a mission that was kind of not really connected to anything.

He would go and talk to m he get his big mission and then go off into the world and like globe Trot, which is a big part of what made those movies especially work because nobody got to travel in the sixties and seventies, like who's got money to go to Istanbul or Duchambay or Tokyo or Cairo or skiing in the Alps, And so those movies were vicarious thrills for people like I've never seen that place. What's Venice? Like James Bond went to Venice and now I kind

of know. And so people would go to see those

movies like Vacation in a weird, crazy way. I mean I feel that way now with the world, with the with millennials now, well, no, I feel like that is like the kind of like the core of a lot of art is like you know, we often talk about, you know, the escapism of it, but also just the living vicariously Like I remember when I was a When I was a teen, the there was a game that was called True Crime Streets of l A and they had all the different l A streets and I didn't

have my driver's license yet, so I would like drive around the streets, like not solving crimes and all this stuff, but just to imagine what it'll be like when I have my driver's license driving around l A. Yeah. Yeah, I solved more crimes I r L than in the game. But yeah, so so there's that that kind of beauty of art of just like seeing these you know, beautiful places and and experiencing them even though you can't physically

experience them. Yeah, and like the Bond novels especially, and then the movie is sort of after the fashion were aspirational. I think to like a generation of men um for good and for ill, Like the good of it is like James Bond really like dressed well and he lived well and he liked good food, and like it's a weird, like Soamelier's Guide to Wine and stuff like those books are all like super refined and super defeat and super like you know, well you wouldn't have the fifty four

Rothchild before a stake. My God, what kind of barbarian are you? It's like, dude, like you're a killer. But but and that's that's sort of how it helped tie into the Playboy because Playboy was also very much like, here's here's the guy that you kind of want to be, Like, here's how you should dress, here's the party you should go to, here's the music you should listen to. Here's the books you should read. Um, here's the women you should want to consort with. And James Bond fit right

into there. It was like he he was the guy you wanted to be. Um. That changes over time, you know, and especially the as the more diverse a audience gets, the less they might want to just be that guy, you know. And and James Bond may or may not eventually change with those times, because there is no good reason why James Bond, if it's going to be played by a bunch of different actors, couldn't also be played by a person of color. And that's that's been the

interesting conversation. And and I'll save that one because there's stuff about the new one that I definitely want to dig into. And yeah, and I definitely want your thoughts on. But when we come back, we're going to talk about, you know, the double O call sign and kind of what that means, and get all into that meeting stuff. See you in a bit and we're back. Okay. I have one quote that I wanted to say. It's exactly

what you said about him being a blunt instrument. This is from Ian Fleming in The New Yorker from nineteen sixty two. He said, when I wrote the first one in ninety three, I wanted Bond to be an extremely dull, uninteresting man to whom things happen. I wanted him to be a blunt instrument. When I was casting around for a name for my protagonists, I thought, by god, James

Bond is the dullest name I've ever heard. That funny because when you hear Bond, James Bond, it's like a man of mystery, and he's sexy debonair and it's just like,

oh no, this like dull office worker. Yeah, like he I think that he was in his Jamaica estate, which is also named Golden Eye because of course it is um and he had a wall full of books, and one of them was a book on birds, like bird watching and stuff, written by a guy named James Bond, and I was like, oh god, if that's not the most boring person and the most boring man for boring

dude that's ever been here's my spy. Well, it transforms so much, it's so interesting that it was like, Oh, just this man that things happened to happen to him, to him being this force of nature essentially wrecking He's

a wrecking ball in my opinion, very much so. And and like those movies and even the stories, there's the version of those that are very reactionary, right, because like James Bond is kind of like this global cop who like I'm gonna go right or wrong, but the wrong has to happen before he gets called off his game. So it's very much like we said, it's like, here's your mission, James, go do the thing. And then he

goes and does the thing. But it would take a while before the movies began to make him proactive, before they gave him missions and drives and revenge and all that stuff that actually makes for here that you want to be tuning into over and over again, as opposed to just a guy waiting for like a case file to fall on his desk, fump, I guess I gotta go get that bad again, Jimmy fail. I'm gonna come and get you. I'm coming get you. So explain the

double O seven the license to kill. That's the double oh part, right, double there's a whole section, like there's the Special Investigative Service, the s I S, which is also like m I five or m I six um, which are just like spies who do spy stuff in the UK. But of that section, and fictionally, I'm assuming there's the double O section, and I think the double O counts for each kill that you have to make to get into that section. And then there's only nine

of those agents. There's no double O ten, but it's just double O one to double oh ni and there are the nine people who can kind of travel the world with impunity and just kill people, which seems like an odd thing to give a person, like, you know, what's the test for that? Like my driver's license, I got that parallel park, I gotta do a three point turn, I gotta whatever, Like what's your double oh license test? And in the movie is that you've got to kill

two people? Oh? Okay, so you can. It's like a gang initiation. So you kill two people and then you get to be and then you get inducted into the it's the two people that like m or whatever has

assigned you to kill, right, yeah, like Casino Royale. I think the good one opens with that with him, you know, sort of like stalking some dude in his office building, and you know, there's a whole conversations like, well, you know, you can't be you haven't had your two kills yet, and he talks about like the first one, and then he then you flash back to and beat up that guy in the men's room, and then there I was like, well, what about your second. You'll you'll find your second to

be like a lot easier. And then he shoots him in the head and he's like considerably And so now he's officially like we're rebooting James Bond and he's just got into the service and he's doing his thing. Is that the first of the Daniel Craig Yeah, okay, yeah, Like that's how they sort of reset it by like go back to the beginning, like day one on the job. This is what James Bond. How does that work with the rest of the U N Like, how does that work with American like we're just all okay, like, oh

that no, he's allowed to kill, so totally fine. Noo coo coo cool he just like that guys, Yeah yeah, yeah, I know, but I asked the wrong question, like how is that? But what about America? They care? Don't Americans care about killing? Um? Hilarious? L O L. I think they must have some kind of like back channel, Like listen, if he did it, he had to do it for a good reason, and it's you know, foreign intelligence, world allies, and that's cool. And if he goes bad people, they're

bad people and that's fine. You're killing the good people. Yeah, please, that'd be great. One other thing before we hop over talking about his character. So in Fleming stories and in the films, James Bond is in his mid to late thirties but doesn't age. I think that's really cool. It is kind of cool. I mean, it's if we can live for what is enough thirty three years, where like

Bart Simpson is still in fifth grade. Yeah. Well, Daniel Craig, he seemed like he was in his forties, like some of them have have at least I would say for like energy they have like that. But what am I trying to say that old man strength? No not, they have that like season. You know when Steve Carrell came out this year and he had the gray hairs coming and everyone's like, whoa, they looked at him differently. That's

what I mean about them. Yeah, I mean, I think like the Bonds usually when they begin, they're sort of young and vibrant and like, oh, look at that guy, he's awesome, and then over time, like Sean Connery did seven of them, and by the last one, like the two pay is not holding that tight anymore than like this, the there's a big cumber bund on his tuxedos to like cover up that mid section, which is tight as it was when he was like third place for Mr. Universe.

Like yeah, um, I mean age age is always a problem with things like this, you know, same thing like Batman, Like you can't have maybe not so true, you can have Michael Keaton playing Batman and he was always like forty two years old even when he wasn't. But like, you need somebody who looks like they can get the

job done right. You need somebody who looks like, oh no, I buy that this James Bond can actually like punch everybody in the face and can actually take on dudes with steel jaws and like you know, crazy Japanese suma wrestler dudes. And when he stops looking like that, they start to get silly, you know. And so many of the Roger Moore movies or like him and leisure suits traveling the world like beating up on other old dudes.

And I guess, like, what, this isn't what I signed up for, beating up Christopher Lee, Like this is a two senior citizen just slapping each other in the face a lot, Like that's not worth my eight dollars. Yeah, all of this conversation are leading me into all these like fun ideas and questions that I want to save towards the end because they're all about cool things that

we think could happen fair enough. But like for me anyway, like I was always a comic book reader and uh and and the second best part about comic books are the bad guys and the various version of the bad guys, especially Batman's Rose Gallery and like Spider Man's Rose Gallery, and look at the various ways these characters can reflect upon your hero and the James Bond Rose Gallery is just daffy. He's like that guy loves gold. Okay, sure, what about that guy? He wants to go to the moon.

Where's octopusy want? Unclear? She has eight cats. I don't know what's happening here at all. Do you have a favorite? Um? My favorite? My favorite Bond villain is in the Bond Movie with the Worst James Bond the Worst. The Worst Bond Movie is On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which is when Sean Connery decided, I don't want to do this anymore, screw you guys, I'm going home, and they and George lason By who was like an Australian model who could

not act at all. But the bad guy was Telly Savalas, and Telly Savalas was living it like his his Blowfeld was like Mountaintop Chalet and like Turtlenecks in The Bald Head. And he was freaking kojacked as a bad guy. And like as a movie, it's great as a Bond, he's awful. Um, But like that's the movie in which you know James Bond falls in love, like for real love and gets married.

By the time that movies he marries Diana Rigg at the end of that movie and then like Blowfeld kills her and it's super tragic, and that should motivate a guy to do a bunch of handle. It's a ton of fridging. Um. But like it was the rare Bond movie that gave him actual like forward motion. Right, we're moving the character along, We're changing this guy who otherwise feels like a sitcom character. Um. And then they kind of reversed it all in the next movie. He's back

to being that guy again, and it's all good. It's fine, he's gonna he gave us a taste and we tasted a yeah, you know, and every now and again they will they will sort of like nudge back into that world.

I think Skyfall kind of try to drag some of that past stuff forward and like no James sponsor real guy and he's had decades of history and here's here's the the Aston Martin from Goldfinger and his garage and here's then we're going to his answer stral home and seeing his parents graves and we're we're pretending like this is all real and all this tonnage would land on a guy in a real way. Speaking of Sean Connery. So he was the first actor to put portray Bond

in a film. It was Doctor No. Nineteen six two. I've never seen that one. Do you recommend? Uh, it's it's it's a thing because like, there's there's a lot of you will recognize a lot of elements from that movie because they've been in so many other movies. You know. It's like there's the henchman guy, and here's the little theme song, and here's you know, the girl with the awesome bikini rises out of the water, because we're gonna

do that stuff. Um Like, so much of how we began to understand sort of action film kind of began in that movie, especially espionage movies. It's super dated and it's super problematic, and you know, in the kinds of ways that things are when you look back at a fifty year old movie with something resembing perspective, you're like, oh, wow, you've never met a black person, have any of you know, you know, like pigeon English stuff like, oh, mister bod

let me get you in the boat. Yeah, that's cool, But James Bond drinks red stripe in that and so like, and so I'd be like that was my like red stripe phase. He was like, that's Bonds beer beer, Gonna drink Bonds beer. Oh yeah. I had a huge red stripe phase for some reason. Everyone I knew was real in a red stripe. And I was like, all right, this is this is the road we're going down. Just a note of moving off of Sean Connery is that

he was an amateur bodybuilder. Yeah. Yeah, when he said Mr. Universe, I went to look it up because that's a fact I did not uh and yeah he was swelped up. I mean, but also like swelt for, which is not very It's so funny because there is like, uh, in bodybuilding, they have this other uh category now called classic bodybuilder. So it's like, so you don't have to be a Kai green super human built, you can be that kind of classic still normal muscles, not as roided out look.

And I was like because because someone, because someone was like you should do bodybuilding. I was like, one, no, I'm not, I'm not trying to look like that. They're like, no, you should try the classic lane. And that's when I found out about like that. They went like all the way to like crystal PEPSI no, no, no, no, you got throttled back classic like actual muscle musclitcher and like he can fit into a suit off the rack. Maybe. Yeah.

So usually a lot of times the villains are the title character, right, you have octopusy, the Doctor, No Goldfinger, Goldfinger yeah to a point, like the Man with the Golden Gun. Eventually they just started like making up names with like words that sounded good together, little Die another day with so tomorrow Tomorrow never dies. Oh okay, yeah, alright, license to kill No, it's she said his wallet, Like

that's it. Like these things like stopped having this crazy awesome residents but um but yeah, like they were always somewhat cartoonish in like an outlandish kind of way. It's like, all right, well there's gold thing who really likes gold, and so everything he has is made of gold and that's untenable. But sure, so that's what gold Member was

making fun of very much. So, like you know, I mean, Austin Powers was always living in this world of kind of like like this James Bond the Saint kind of like we're gonna make fun of all of this like swinging sixties stuff. But then gold Member was just straight

up like we're doing a Bond movie. Yeah, we're not even pretend anymore, Like Beyonce is going to play And they would always kind of like not just problem actually play with like race, but also like women in race, and were just like I hear give me the two Bongos's Babby and Thumper, and like Thumper is going to be like this black girl but like poofy, like you know, the puffy afro puffs. And then like my Thumper is gonna be like a sweetest blonde and like that's just

what they do. So Bamby and Thumper and what. Yeah, come on, man, Like, couldn't you just have a name plenty o'tool? That is not a name of somebody names it child. No, we're going to get an email from Plenty Like excuse me, listen. I come from a very wrong line of plenty. My father was a plenty. I'm a plenty. My son is a plenty. Did you read any of the comics or collect any of the comics of James Bond comics? I never did. I never did.

And it part of it, I think was because you either have the novels which were like super pulpy, or you had the movies which were movies and We're awesome, and the comic books always felt like this weird half step between them. It's like, I'm not gonna get what I want out of this because like marvelous but in these comics out and I'm sure it's a good idea, but the things that I respond to in a Bond film as like a fourteen year old boy, are not

showing up. True. Speaking of things for fourteen year old boys, there was there was actually the first Bond video game, UM, which was developed by the Parker Brothers and was released for Atari. However, that is not the one that comes to mind for all of us. It's seven first person shooter video game Golden Eye. Because if he's about to wax poet Golden I it's so funny because I have never seen a single James Bond film Wow, but I

have played many a Golden Eye. And Golden Eye is special in the sense that it had it normalized first person shooters. It changed the game literally, uh, and so you know, it got people well aware of of crappy hit boxes with odd job. If you chose odd job, you were a horrible human being. And so like everything about Golden Eye is so fun and they recently did a source remaster for PC, so you can grab that if you're on the PC Master Race. But you know,

it's super. It was fun, and what kind of sucked was it was so good, so nostalgic that a Bond game never was able to survive around there. I think there was like was it a die? It was either die another day or um, what is the one that came out for PS two or PS one Night Fire? Night Fire? That's what it's saying. James Bond double O seven Night Fire for PS two. Okay, I think that's what it was. Then it was it was not great. I just remember that Golden Eye was the first party

game I've ever really played. It was, you know, like it was. It was a game where some they had an N sixty four. You go over and always be like five or six people in that house and for them would be playing Golden at any given time, and there was and it was It became a social event in a way that video games hadn't been for me and before. And there was always like it. And the screen was divided into those four boxes, right, and so

four people were playing at once. I'm on a giant screen there's always one screen where some person could not figure out how to focus, Like just look straight ahead, Man, I can't do it. Yeah, that was that was next level. And you know, just talking about Golden Night, it's crazy to think that in sixty four launched two of the biggest like multiplayer party games. Uh not counting Mario Party, but you have Smash Bros. And you have Golden Ye. It's it's crazy to know that all that came from

the n sixty four totally. I am curious because as we're going over these, uh, the actors that have played James Bond. To me, Pierce Brosnan was my James Bond because he was who I was first introduced to and who I grew up with until Daniel Craig came in a picture. Who do you consider your James Bond? Um? The first Bond movie I ever saw was Never Say Never Again. Um, So Sean Connery is my Bond. Um. I think I've seen more Roger Moore James Bond movies,

never seen anybody else. And that was more contemporary for me, Like I was a kid of the eighties and he was he was a late seventies into like eighty five eighties six, I think, but it's kind of always going to be Sean Connery for me, and even like never was it Never Again is when he's the old Bond, he's winning like to pay Bond, like it's just and it's a remake of another Bond movie because like MGM has the like the lock on James Bond movies and

I have for since the very beginning. But there was some weird dispute with the screenwriter of Thunderball and he claimed some rights to it, and so that's the one movie that if any other company wants to make, they can remake Thunderball. And so it was Thunderball and then Never Seen Ever Again, which is just a remake of

Thunderball again. Um. And so I remember that that was a summer and I was a bad boy at school and it was just coming out on HBO, and like I had forged my report card, like I like the kind of forgery that in junior high school you're really really good at. So I was like, oh, I'm gonna make these f s a's because nobody will notice that, and these ds are gonna be bees because that totally works. And uh, And I had told my parents like at length that I really wanted to see this movie movie.

And then when I they caught me in my master forgery, they were like, you can't do anything for a summer. So you know Caribbean parents, that's how that goes. Oh yeah, So so from like June through September, I was locked in my room. But then like once once I got paroled, like my dad had videotaped never Say Never again for me, Like that was his present for me as I completed

my my rounds in in the Big House. And I remember watching that movie and loving it to death even though it's not great, um, but it didn't matter because like this was this was the price. Yeah, that was your freedom for this is my freedom for like I'm free given. It's funny talking about like your James Bonds and stuff like that because you know Danny, you say, Daniel Craig was yours, but when he was, But my

favorite Bond movie is Casino. Because the Internet was not happy with Daniel Craig during productions, they had a website called Daniel Craig is not Bond dot Com to express their satisfaction. Just in case you think they release The Snyder Cut Crew is a new thing. We've been wild nerds have been wilding on the internet for the history that was very Yes, that was a huge thing, and it was blonde and he had these weird big ears.

Yeah that was because he didn't have the same debonair, you know, his what am I trying to like small features that like right before him Pierce had, you know, Like but it's also funny because you're going based off of just a portrayal of a book, which like, at least, you know, in comic books, it's like I'm seeing something, but in a book, it's like like when it was a big thing with rubing black, you know, and lots of times it's real funny to see how like just

accurately described black features and books always seem to be just skipped over by white people when they read it, where it's like oh, curly, oh it must be a ginger, you know, he's yeah. Yeah, it's always like wild to see, like, you know, just the way people are just conditioned to whitewash. But it's even crazier when it's like, yeah, no, just a white dude on paper could be a white dude on screen. But just we've grown so accustomed that they were so mad and then now you know, people are like,

that's not gonna be it. And it's funny because that reminds me of because people are so quick to forget on the internet because now Heath Ledger is everyone's favorite joker, but when your boy was announced, people were mad Matt uh with a you know, a little not as much as him because now they've kind of learned a little.

But Robert Pattinson, yeah, you know, people have Batman. Well, anyway, it's funny because like it just got went to show you people who don't watch movies outside of comic book movies. When they're like, he's not a good act I was like, you haven't seen anything besides Twilight. He gives off Hella Bruce Wayne vibes. We have to take a really quick break. We're going to hop back into the future of James Bond right after this and we're back. I just wanted

to show you all this picture. So this is what James Bond looks like to Ian Fleming not not really far off in my opinion from some of the like Sean Connery ish not. Also, he looks like Alfred the Butler. He also looks like that weird guy from the first Charlie Angels movie, you remember, the one who was smelling Crisp Glover. Yes, how could I forget? Kind of just the McFly. Yes, this is interesting. This is like the interpretation of what Yeah, Ian Flint thinks that James Bond.

Not quite in my opinion, So what we're looking at, well we'll tweet this out, but um, not quite. He looks more like a librarian totally. But that's what it was, an ordinary man. She's like a chimney sweep. Yeah. So now it's the fun to talk about the future of James Bond and I. And then there's lots of fun things that we talked about in the past that you've kind of educated me on, and that begs so many

fun questions. First off, and foremost, you know, the big news that have come out from the new James Bond movie is that there's a let me get this correctly, there's a new double oh seven, Yes, and she is going to be a black woman. Uh So, do do we feel this confirms the the well, because she's not going as Bond, even though some headlines have tried to push it as but she's going as the new double

oh seven. Uh, personally, I'm still with the cynic brain, which I think is she's going to start get murdered and then Bonds like I have to avenge this, this death you mean like use this black lady is ammunition for him to go No, probably not. I mean it's like every little bit of progress is progress. And actually, like I know we're gonna make Monty Penny. I'm going to promote her and make her a double O seven

because she's proved capable and she's ready to roll. And James Bond is retired and we're gonna pull him back into action by X number of reasons. But you know it's there is no reason even if it's James Bond. Like James Bond, yes, and Flement created him as a white guy, um, but there's nothing about him that requires him to be white, you know what I mean. Like it's it's unlike Bruce Wayne. For me, for my money,

Bruce Wayne needs to be a white guy who interesting. Yeah, because I think as Bruce Wayne as the inheritor of the Wayne fortune, as as the last line of the people who built Gotham City. Like you're looking at Carnegies and Rockefellers and that kind of thing. It needs to be old money, and there is no old black money, you know, at least not in that way. There's no there's no generational guilt and responsibility for a city the way you get if you're you know, Nelson Rockefeller's kid.

And so for Bruce Wayne to be that child who decides to like my parents had become like my My father was the first one to break from the family business become a doctor. My mother was all about charity. And then they get killed and I am now the last son of the Waynes in the city that my family built and they and they died because of this city, and I'm a little bit crazy. I'm going to put out a mask and punch people, you know, like that

kind of requires a certain level of Caucasity. I think the thing about it is that they're okay with him punching out people. He makes along into his own hands, and I don't think that a black person would be able to do that and get away with it. And

they're also fair, that would be it. But like James Bond, what it requires is an orphan who joins the military, who proves very adept at a very certain kind of he's got a very particular set of skills, you know, and like that doesn't require him being white, like he could as easily be a Pakistani guy who a Pakistani Londoner who moved there, or a Nigerian Britain or whatever.

You just got to be an orphan, and there is no there's no saying who gets to be an orphan like Spider Man, Like listen, you're going to be from a broken home in Queens, Like you're probably not white

like all the things you could be. It's probably not that you know, so like it is, it is kind of high time that this franchise begins to push in a way that reflects the times, because all of those movies did, Like that's the it's really interesting looking at those movies decade by decade, what they're talking about, what who the bad guys are, what the bad guy plans are. They seem to be a mirror of the times that

you're living in. Like Moonrakers and like the late seventies early eighties we're all about star Wars and now James Bond goes to space, you know, and then you're like go go business nineties and like you know, Wall Street and eighties and all that stuff, and now James Bond is up against like corporate tycoons, and like, here's the guy who's got like micro chip plans, because of course that's Christopher walking like I got a micro chip. Like he's all about a reflection of the time that he's

in and in our time right now. Like it doesn't feel as if that character is actually some like weird like hold over to the old like British Empire. Like he's probably an immigrant. He's probably a guy who loves the UK the way only an immigrant loves the country they adopt and will do anything for that country, you know, Like he will lay it all on the line for these people who took him in and gave him a home and gave him a place and gave him a purpose.

Like just find the new story in the old framework. I mean, you should just clip this and give it to your manager. That's your picture right there. Um yeah, I mean there was such an uproar and it was just like I remember I tweeted, and it's James Bond is still currently being played by a white guy. Daniel Craig is returning. Um, and we do have uh, but it's double oh seven, which when they die, that number doesn't it's not it doesn't not like a jersey that

gets retired. Nine. We only have nine now, is the thing. I'm like, a woman can be put it up in the Manchester United Stadium, have it hanging. Uh. And then here's my other question I had about the future. Uh. And just based on this last discussion, I'm excited to hear. Uh what what would you do you think the James Bond because we talked about him being the same age and usually the actor aging. Do you think James Bond should get like a logan treatment, like an old man

James Bond. Do you think that's an interesting story? That's something YEA, give me the last James Bond story, like, you know what is what does that look like? I remember there was there was a theory or maybe it's a room or maybe it's a fact. I don't know. Um where in Skyfall, the second to last, the second most recent James Bond movie, there's a character when James Bond goes back to the ancestral Bond manner and and Albert Finney is like this guy kind of banging around

that mansion. They wanted that to be Sean Connery, and they wanted that to be like the retirement home for old James Bonds, you know, but they couldn't get Connery for whatever reason I don't understand. But that idea of here's a here's a world in which we feel like we've moved past the need for this kind of espionage, right like you're in the information area you're in, They're like, it's all corporate, it's all cyber terrorism, it's all cyber's warfare.

Like what what would we need a James Bond for? And then something happens where we need to literally go back and get like the sixty four year old like the Liam Neeson aged but like less racist James Bond to go out and do the thing that he does better and and nobody else is trained to do that any Yeah, like that sometimes you need a dinosaur, like sometimes you dig a hole with a shovel. Yeah, And like he was the guy that you need to get to do this thing like I would all day with

that stone. Yeah. No, I'm sold on now. I ain't even seen one new. It was so funny because when when you said immigrant, I was like, oh, and I pitched this. We just talked about Sherlock Holmes last so when you were saying famous, uh British, that was another one that popped as far as like Harry Potter, another one being just as famous as Sherlock Holmes. The so I pitched that the new Sherlock could have been Rammi Malick. And I also feel that way about James vond He's

the bad guy. Hit me. I know he's the bad guy in the new one, and he definitely get He could give off good and bad vibes. I feel good and bad vibes. He's a versatile actor. The new one, No Time to Die, is dropping April eight um. It's directed by Ry Fukanaga, and that he co wrote with Scott z Burns and Phoebe waller Bridge herself. Indeed, which like that that in and of itself between Karian and

Phoebe waller Bridge. I'm more excited for this Bond movie than I've been for a while, because you know, you can eat as I think you find with like sort of Black Panther is a different Marvel movie than every other Marvel movie because the perspective of the people who get to tell that movie, like Patty Jenkins is Wonder Woman. It's a different superhero movie than every other DC superhero movie because the lens through which you're telling that story

is different. And so to look at this now fifty year old franchise and look at it through a lens through which we've never seen it before, because every other director of a Bond movie has been a white British dude. And so now you get a sort of you know, multi racial, you know, like American with a crazy eye, and it's a crazy flair for this sort of thing.

And then you get a script that's the that's co written by one of these smartest women on the planet, Like what does what does a James Bond movie from those people look like? You know, what does it keep? What does it retain? And how does it innovate and how does it propel the story forward in a in a way that we've never seen before to an audience that might not have responded to Bond before this, you know, because it is it's an archaic idea, you know, it

is something of it, of its own cinematic dinosaur. And to to find a way to put a fresh coat of paint on it, and to and to roll it off the assembly line looking like something brand new while still feeling like something old. I'm all here for that. Yeah, So we have Lashawna Lynch. She will be playing double O seven. You will have recognized her from a bunch

of things, but most recently Captain Marvel. Cannot wait. Cannot wait, I mean, And it's like even even if you've been burned before, and you know Bond has burned before, it's clearly it retains it's its capacity to be like what was that all about? You know? There are enough pieces to it. You know, it's like it's like I if you look at at at a car manufacturer that's been making cars forever, like you know, BMW, Mercedes or whatever.

If you look at like a modern day Mercedes and then a Mercedes from fifty years ago, they look like cousins. You know, like there's enough elements to it. There's enough kind of curves and the bodylines all kind of work the same. But you've now brought it into You've innovated, and you've put all kinds of bells and whistles on it,

but it's still that car. And if you can do that with James Bond and like you know what, Like this was a Rolls Royce from like Night, but like look at a Rolls Royce today, Like you can still kind of tell this faster and it's leaner and it does things better, but it's still it's still a Bond movie. Yeah, and like give me that travelogue. Gave me that hero who does the impossible when nobody else could pull it off. Like give me these women who now have agency in

a way they've never had before. And give me, you know, gadgets I've never seen, like just push it, like make it, make it. I would love it if Lashawna is just sleeping with men and like okay, it's it's eight am. Are you still here? You know, my driver take you? And I would love it if she had the bags, just like okay, here's a key chain. Oh yeah, I don't want to see that. I want to see that movie. She like a double O seven like lapel pin ye like he've been had. Yeah, you, is there anything that

we missed that you wanted to talk about? I think you know that they're they were like sort of three giant like lures to those movies. Right, there's the travelog aspect of it. There's the lifestyle aspect of it. But then there was the gadget stuff, you know, like it. It always felt like a James Bond movie was like sharper image catalog of like what cool thing am I never gonna be able to get my hands on that may or may not exist, but it's like totally crazy. Yeah,

do I want like a sports car that turns into submarine? Yes? I do? When am I gonna I live in the Bronx, I'm never gonna have a reason for a submarine, but I want one. You know. I think that that's sort of the science fiction of it, be like this stuff doesn't exist yet, but maybe some day that it will. I'm like there was there was just this the cool factor of those movies and the cars and this close

and like it was. It was like consumer paradise for stuff that you could never possibly afford and uh and there's something aspirational about that that I was responded to. All Right, well, you know, where can people find you? Let's see on the twitters at Mark Bernardon, on the Instagram at Mark Bernardon. Television show that I wrote for called tread Stone Um will premiere on October. Tune in tune in UM and I think I only took that

job because again it's globetrotting spy stuff. Really, you mean we get to do that and it's like punching people in the next a lot. Yes, are the gadgets, yes, car chases, Yes, women maybe. But uh but yeah, that is that is the most recent thing that I that I tippy typed on that you're able to see in Carnival Row. Carnival Row the first season dropped about a month ago, and h Castle Rock the second season is on its way. Um, but yeah, it's uh, it's a good time to be a nerd. Yeah, totally, yeah, Um,

you can catch me. I can finally announce my New York Comic Con panels, Thank goodness. Um, I will be there Thursday. I have a panel at twelve fifteen called Invisible Latino Volume to check it out. Um, I will also be doing I'll be at New York Comedy Club that night at ten fifteen, and then on Sunday, I am sitting down on the main stage with the original Disney princesses. It's a conversation with them. Yes, it's talked to Jody Benson, Pedo, Hera n Canani Rose. It's gonna

be amazing. They might sing, I don't know. I don't know if I'm allowed to ask them to sing, but I'll ask them beforehand if I'm allowed to ask them to sing. Definitely check that out. It's going to be iconic. Yes, Yes, And I can definitively say that I will not be at New York Comic Con because I just found out that I will actually be uh in Houston for a comedy fest. Uh, the Improv comedy Fest. Me and the guys and white Women will be performing. It's going to

be that same weekend. Uh. Let me look, It'll be at Station Theater, So definitely, uh pop in, Uh if you're in the Houston area. I will definitely be there having barbecue. Yes, ending. It's called the Trill Comedy Fest, which you know, I'm glad to just be a part of something called that. But yeah, I'll be having fun, so pull up. It'll be a good time. I will also be at the New York Comic Con. We will have to hang out. I know I'll come, so you'd

be funny. Yeah, I I've Last year I went with the for Ralph, I went to Disney People, so I didn't actually get to see anything. They just like shuttle you behind the scenes, and like you know, I was in a green room until in the then you like go out and then they shuttle you around, so I didn't. I actually get to go on the floor this time.

That's awesome. I will probably not um because I'm I'm hosting on the Sci Fi Wire main stage, hey, which means she's like asking random people questions every ten minutes, like what are you doing? Good a kid, let's talk about it. It's Dean Kane. Let me ask about man Dean Kane. It's a lot of that for like three days.

It's a lot to be on at all times. It is, but but I'm also delightful, super delightful, like getting to talk to people who I either have never met and idolized them afar or people that I love and they're like just rolled onto my stage by accident. You're here, I had to talk to you for ten minutes. This will be great, um, And I love New York, so an excuse to go to New York. I had that happened with lin Manuel Miranda, and I was like, you know who I am lin Manuel Miranda, Well, god, I

guess I'm somebody this feels great. If we all, if we all get that moment of getting to bed asking lens light, it makes it all worth it. Um yeah, that's it for us. Say stay nerdy, stay nerdy. You missed it.