James Bond Jr. (1991)
An animated TV series featuring Agent 007's nephew Episode listing Review TV.com BBC h2g2 Wikipedia Zim's James Bond Jr page

James Bond Jr. Episode Listing

Based on initial US TV run. First aired September 1991, 65 episodes

1. The Beginning 2. Earth Cracker 3. The Chameleon 4. Shifting Sands 5. Plunder Down Under 6. A Chilling Affair 7. Nothing to Play With 8. Location Danger 9. The Eiffel Missile 10. A Worm in the Apple 11. Valley of the Hungry Dunes 12. Pompeii and Circumstance 13. Never Give a Villain a Fair Shake 14. City of Gold 15. Never Lose Hope 16. No Such Loch 17. Appointment in Macau 18. Lamp of Darkness 19. Hostile Takeover 20. Cruise to Oblivion 21. A Race Against Disaster 22. The Inhuman Race 23. Live and Let's Dance 24. The Sword of Power 25. It's All in the Timing 26. Dance of the Toreadors 27. Fountain of Terror 28. The Emerald Key 29. Ship of Terror 30. Deadly Recall 31. Red Star One 32. Scottish Mist 33. The Art of Evil

34. The Heartbreak Caper 35. Mindfield 36. Leonardo da Vinci's Vault 37. Far Out West 38. Avalanche Run 39. Queen's Ransom 40. Barbella's Big Attraction 41. There for Ms. Fortune 42. Invaders from S.C.U.M. 43. Going for the Gold 44. A Derange Mind 45. Catching the Wave 46. Last of the Tooboos 47. S.C.U.M. on the Water 48. Goldie's Gold Scam 49. Canine Caper 50. Weather or Not 51. Ol' Man River 52. Between a Rock and a Hard Place 53. Sherlock IQ 54. Killer Asteroid 55. Danger Train 56. Quantum Diamonds 57. Rubies Aren't Forever 58. Garden of Evil 59. The Thing in the Ice 60. Goldie Finger at the End of the Rainbow 61. Dutch Treat 62. No Time to Lose 63. Monument to S.C.U.M. 64. Nothern Lights 65. Thor's Thunder

Reviewed in Entertainment Weekly (May 29, 1992)
By Benjamin Svetkey

The new kids' action star James Bond Jr. is carrying on his big uncle's crusade against high-tech bad guys in books, comics, videos, and a TV show. He doesn't order vodka martinis, shaken or stirred. He doesn't collect babes in bikinis. He doesn't even have a license to kill. But his name is still Bond. James Bond... Jr.

He's not the British spy as a youngster, but his teenage nephew, a hot new kids' character who has playgrounds abuzz across the nation. With a whole licensed-merchandise world of his own -- an animated TV show (syndicated to more than 100 stations since September), comic books, paperback novels, toys, and videos -- James Bond Jr. is reinventing the 007 myth for a whole new generation of post-Cold War kids.

Here's the premise: Bond Jr. attends a prestigious prep school in Britain, where his pals are the teenage progeny of other characters from the 007 movies. There's Qs grandson, I.Q., an electronics wizard who, like gramps, builds high tech spy gizmos. There's Gordo Leiter, surfer-dude son of CIA agent Felix Leiter (a minor but frequent character in the films).

When the kids aren't busy with school, they're battling S.C.U.M., an evil organization devoted to spreading ... well, it's not quite clear, but it's evil. And S.C.U.M.'s members include some old familiar faces: updated versions of Dr. No (from the first, 1962 Bond movie) and the metal-mouthed Jaws (from 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me), as well as a few new bad guys - Skullcap, who has a metal lid on his head, and Dr. Derange, a mad scientist with zee wurst Fronch akzent you've ever heard.

Giving 007 a skateboard and sneakers is pret-ty clev-er when you think about it. Now that the Soviet Union is kaputski, what more fitting fate for the Cold War icon than to turn him into a harmless teenage action figure? And harmless this boy is: Nobody gets killed on James Bond Jr., not even after being pushed out of an airplane without a parachute or, say, tied to an Achilles nuclear missile just before blast-off. The body count is similarly modest when it comes to the infamous Bond sex drive - the hottest action Jr. ever sees is an occasional peck on the cheek.

Unfortunately, the TV series doesn't quite live up to the concept. The animation, for one thing, is only a notch or two above Speed Racer-style graphics. That's especially a problem with the "action" sequences: Even with inspired artwork, it's just really hard to get worked up over cartoon car chases and animated aerial "stunts."

The writing is a bit simple, too: While it's okay for very young kids (the plots are easy to follow, the characters are pleasant enough), it lacks the sort of winking subtext that might have had adolescents and even adults tuning in as well. Bond Jr. could stand a visit from Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale.

The Bond Jr. comic books and novels are even shabbier - they're basically storyboards lifted straight from the TV show. Don't let your kids waste their allowance - especially if they're over 9 or 10. If they really want to read about James Bond, pick them up some of Ian Fleming's 007 novels from the '50s and early '60s. They aren't nearly as violent as the movies, the sex scenes are tame by today's standards, the prose is slickly elegant, and the plots still pack a satisfying wallop - even now, with the Cold War over and SMERSH tossed into the dustbin of history.

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