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List of Bond pop culture references lost on modern audiences

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  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited September 2021 Posts: 18,282
    marc wrote: »
    About OP and the tiger reference, I guess the audience was thinking of something like this:



    (interesting piece of commercial filmmaking, imo)

    What was in that stuff? Red diesel?! :-/
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,428
    marc wrote: »
    A difficult one to find:

    The Tarzan yell is a Tarzan reference.

    Heh! I can't believe we were talking about Barbara Wodehouse and yet I didn't spot anyone mention that one! :) (apologies if I missed it)
  • w2bondw2bond is indeed a very rare breed
    Posts: 2,252
    Seems like this is turning into a general pop culture reference thread :) I suppose if we're including music we have to also include Beach Boys and Frank Sinatra
  • RevelatorRevelator
    Posts: 2,918
    References to those musicians would only be lost on the very young though.
  • marcmarc Universal Exports
    Posts: 2,610
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    marc wrote: »
    About OP and the tiger reference, I guess the audience was thinking of something like this:



    (interesting piece of commercial filmmaking, imo)

    What was in that stuff? Red diesel?! :-/

    No, the gas station attendant spontaneously decided to put a Red Tiger in the tank.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,282
    marc wrote: »
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    marc wrote: »
    About OP and the tiger reference, I guess the audience was thinking of something like this:



    (interesting piece of commercial filmmaking, imo)

    What was in that stuff? Red diesel?! :-/

    No, the gas station attendant spontaneously decided to put a Red Tiger in the tank.

    That explains it. Maybe it's a Continental thing. Here in the UK fuel is clear or has a yellowish tinge. Only agricultural diesel is dyed red as it has a much lower rate of tax applied to it. Still, a very good advert with a cinematic quality to it.
  • ToTheRightToTheRight
    Posts: 16,170
    marc wrote: »
    A difficult one to find:

    The Tarzan yell is a Tarzan reference.

    I was going to mention that one, too. I have a difficult time believing anyone under , say 35, would get that reference. New Tarzan movies these days are extremely rare, and the classic films don't get much television play anymore.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    marc wrote: »
    A difficult one to find:

    The Tarzan yell is a Tarzan reference.

    I was going to mention that one, too. I have a difficult time believing anyone under , say 35, would get that reference. New Tarzan movies these days are extremely rare, and the classic films don't get much television play anymore.

    Besides, that yell was mostly a Johnny Weissmuller thing, although some others did copy it.
  • marcmarc Universal Exports
    Posts: 2,610
    ToTheRight wrote: »
    marc wrote: »
    A difficult one to find:

    The Tarzan yell is a Tarzan reference.

    I was going to mention that one, too. I have a difficult time believing anyone under , say 35, would get that reference. New Tarzan movies these days are extremely rare, and the classic films don't get much television play anymore.

    That may well be true. Rather under 20, perhaps, for my region, but nevertheless.

    Dragonpol wrote: »
    marc wrote: »
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    marc wrote: »
    About OP and the tiger reference, I guess the audience was thinking of something like this:



    (interesting piece of commercial filmmaking, imo)

    What was in that stuff? Red diesel?! :-/

    No, the gas station attendant spontaneously decided to put a Red Tiger in the tank.

    That explains it. Maybe it's a Continental thing. Here in the UK fuel is clear or has a yellowish tinge. Only agricultural diesel is dyed red as it has a much lower rate of tax applied to it. Still, a very good advert with a cinematic quality to it.

    The UK yellowish tinge is reasonable. Tigers are yellow, after all. Clear? I don't know. Over here, I haven't noticed anything other than black/brown. In any case, I don't think they used this stuff:

    https://www.google.de/imgres?imgurl=https://www.ilovegrowingmarijuana.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Red-Diesel-1.jpg&imgrefurl=https://www.ilovegrowingmarijuana.com/red-diesel/&tbnid=XFVeNURmycqOzM&vet=12ahUKEwinnKP1pPLyAhXN_4UKHQWyAFEQMygFegUIARC0AQ..i&docid=nAgjFYbqIEcYsM&w=600&h=300&q=red diesel cannabis free image&ved=2ahUKEwinnKP1pPLyAhXN_4UKHQWyAFEQMygFegUIARC0AQ
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 13,818
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    marc wrote: »
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    marc wrote: »
    About OP and the tiger reference, I guess the audience was thinking of something like this:



    (interesting piece of commercial filmmaking, imo)

    What was in that stuff? Red diesel?! :-/

    No, the gas station attendant spontaneously decided to put a Red Tiger in the tank.

    That explains it. Maybe it's a Continental thing. Here in the UK fuel is clear or has a yellowish tinge. Only agricultural diesel is dyed red as it has a much lower rate of tax applied to it. Still, a very good advert with a cinematic quality to it.
    Correct for fuel today, red-dyed diesel is for non-highway use in the US as non-taxed as well. Additionally, fuels can be dyed for identification and to indicate when commingling/contamination occurs.

    In this case, it's as simple as back in the 1970s (US, likely elsewhere) leaded gasoline had a reddish color to identify it. Changed over time as unleaded took over. Fill'r up.

    https://www.oklahoman.com/article/2546442/gasoline-color-rule-dropped-fuel-grade-marker-history



  • marcmarc Universal Exports
    edited September 2021 Posts: 2,610
    RichardTheBruce wrote: »

    I think this is how the tiger would sound if they fed him Red Diesel. 🙂
  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    Posts: 14,590
    The fuel leaking out of the tanks next to Bond's remote mine in GE was a pinky-red colour.
  • marcmarc Universal Exports
    Posts: 2,610
    Another dubbing-only reference in TB: When Pat introduces "Mr. Bond ... Count Lippe", Bond responds by saying "From Detmold, eh?"
    Detmold used to be the capital of the County of Lippe (sometimes also called Lippe-Detmold) which existed until 1919. I think most people today (except from that area) don't get the reference.

    (Lippe is also the name of the local river; 'Lippe' means 'lip' in English)
  • marcmarc Universal Exports
    Posts: 2,610
    Fittingly for MR, one of Drax's hunters plays the beginning notes of the '2001: A space odyssey' (1968) theme.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited September 2021 Posts: 16,428
    marc wrote: »
    Fittingly for MR, one of Drax's hunters plays the beginning notes of the '2001: A space odyssey' (1968) theme.

    Well it's Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss (1896), which was used as the theme from 2001 :)
  • marcmarc Universal Exports
    Posts: 2,610
    Right. Strauss's music wasn't really pop culture, though, I'd say. And I didn't want to mention too many Strausses. They weren't related, by the way, Richard and Johann.
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou, but I now hear a new dog barkin'
    Posts: 9,041
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    What was in that stuff? Red diesel?! :-/
    The Opel Rekord B was not available with a diesel engine. But you'd have a point if it were otherwise, because diesel is basically identical to heating oil, and the latter is taxed to a far lesser degree and traditionally dyed red so the customs/finance police can easily see that someone has been dodging those taxes by putting heating oil into his diesel tank.

    I guess that in this commercial, the red colour is just meant to convey strength, or a mixture of the reddish hue and black stripes of the tiger's coat.
  • AKillToAViewAKillToAView
    Posts: 440
    RichardTheBruce wrote: »
    mtm wrote: »
    Did Wodehouse get shown in the States?
    Barbara Woodhouse was enough of a celebrity that I knew of her in the US and got the joke on screen. But I'm realizing now her show only began being broadcast on PBS in 1983 the year of Octopussy's release.

    Certainly enough of a celebrity that Tracey Ullman not only parodied her on the US Tracey Ullman Show, but even voiced another parody, on that show's spinoff series; The Simpsons.

    a5bdc6ad-fb7e-4f6f-b049-8ce5afd47b6e_screenshot.jpg


  • w2bondw2bond is indeed a very rare breed
    Posts: 2,252
    I'm gonna update the list here but I'm putting these two here for future reference:
    Dick Tracy
    Farewell to arms
  • w2bondw2bond is indeed a very rare breed
    edited October 2021 Posts: 2,252
    Updated. There's so many references that I'm thinking I should drop the "modern audiences" part of the title...?
    marc wrote: »
    Another reference that's only in the dubbing: In TB, when Bond traps Count Lippe in the 'sweating machine', he sings a little ditty, something like "Sweat, little Count, sweat fast; sweating makes the eyes bright". A reference to the operetta "The Bat"/"Die Fledermaus" by Johann Strauss where the rhyme goes something like: "Drink, Honey, drink fast; drinking makes the eyes bright". 🙃

    Which language?
    Gerard wrote: »
    Does CR '67 count ? Because there are references galore in that mess of a movie.

    What does everyone think?
  • marcmarc Universal Exports
    edited October 2021 Posts: 2,610
    This was in the German version, like the other two dubbing-only examples.

    About CR 67, I personally wouldn't include it, but it could be added in brackets, e.g.
    EDIT: and it would certainly be interesting to collect these references.
  • StirredNotShakenStirredNotShaken Toronto
    Posts: 2,402
    It's already in the list, but as someone whose first Connery film ever was Thunderball, as someone who regularly had it in the rotation as a kid, and as someone who saw Another Time, Another Place at a fairly young age as well, I'm embarrassed that it took until my most recent viewing to actually register the easter egg.
  • GerardGerard
    Posts: 5,997
    Another reference/joke that has not (to my knowledge) been put here : In TWINE, John Cleese, playing R, is seen trying to avoid obstacles in Q's laboratory in a way that recalls the "Ministry of Silly Walks" sketch in Monty Python's Flying Circus. Definitely intentional, that one.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited November 2021 Posts: 3,154
    There was an episode of The New Avengers where a giant rat in the London sewers was eventually killed by a few dozen cats. Because there were so many of them, Gambit went 'Pussy?' and Steed said 'Galore!'
  • AceHoleAceHole Belgium, via Britain
    Posts: 1,731
    Gerard wrote: »
    Another reference/joke that has not (to my knowledge) been put here : In TWINE, John Cleese, playing R, is seen trying to avoid obstacles in Q's laboratory in a way that recalls the "Ministry of Silly Walks" sketch in Monty Python's Flying Circus. Definitely intentional, that one.

    Good catch.
    God I loved Python, my step dad introduced me to it as a teenager and life was never quite the same after... Fish Dance 🤓
  • GerardGerard
    edited November 2021 Posts: 5,997
    I wonder how many outside of France (or even inside, for what I know) caught the symbolisme of Lea Seydoux's character name, Madeleine Swann. So, to explain : Swann is a character in the cycle A la Recherche du Temps perdu, by french writer Marcel Proust. The first novel of the cycle, Du Côté de chez Swann begins famously by the narrator eating a madeleine, whose taste evokes his memories of his earlier days. A madeleine is a french cake :

    1920px-Madeleine_recto.jpg

    The reason why Madeleine was called Swann instead of Proust is probably because, one, it was too much on the nose, and two, because the name Madeleine Proust is already taken by a french comedian :


    957881492_L.jpg

    Oh, and there's also the infamous line : "The things I do for England", first uttered by Charles Laughton in The Private Life of Henry the Eight (just before he goes to bed Ann of Cleves, and then by Bond in YOLT.
  • w2bondw2bond is indeed a very rare breed
    Posts: 2,252
    Gerard wrote: »
    Another reference/joke that has not (to my knowledge) been put here : In TWINE, John Cleese, playing R, is seen trying to avoid obstacles in Q's laboratory in a way that recalls the "Ministry of Silly Walks" sketch in Monty Python's Flying Circus. Definitely intentional, that one.

    I just watched the scene. Which part are you referring to?
  • GerardGerard
    Posts: 5,997
    In fact, it seems it was in DAD

  • TopGearJB007TopGearJB007
    Posts: 624
    Gerard wrote: »
    A madeleine is a french cake

    I know them from The Transporter. I like them- very tasty.

  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    Posts: 3,154
    Fess up, didn't you sometimes want Cleese to fawn and scrape around M like Fawlty did with Sybil and get exasperated with Brosnan like Basil did with his guests? Or give him one last chance and then find a branch and give Brozza a damn good thrashing?
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