Pint-Sized Spy Adventures

We recently went over the two James Bond Jr. games (NES and SNES), as I increasingly try to cover everything James BondThe world's most famous secret agent, James Bond has starred not only in dozens of books but also one of the most famous, and certainly the longest running, film franchises of all time. (without, amusingly, ever reading any of the books), and it did reveal the fact that there was one bit of James Bond ephemera we hadn’t really discussed: the cartoon series James Bond Jr. My original plan was just to cover the films (EON produced primarily, with the two off brand adventures included), but that scope has shifted over time and I eventually realized we simply had to cover it all, good and bad, for the sake of completeness. And that includes this cartoon as well.

Honestly, I’m not certain how many people even remember that James Bond Jr. existed. The series only ran for one season all the way back in 1991, and while, yes, it did get a large, sixty-five episode order, that really only lasted three months on the air (since weekday cartoons like this ran five episodes at a time for thirteen weeks a season). It wasn’t renewed, and no further adventures were made, meaning that once Junior went off the air, that was it for him. All that remained was for all the various companies to burn off their tie-in materials (some toys, of course, plus a series of Puffin Books in 1992, another selection of Buzz books in 1993, Marvel comics in 1992, and then the two video games from 1992 as well), and then the character was retired completely.

This feels like one of those Mandela effect moments in pop culture. “Did you know there was a franchise based around Bond’s nephew?” someone would ask, and then everyone would look into it and realize they were misremembering. Except this was real. This happened, and it all lasted for about two years, counting ancillary material, and then it faded away just as fast. There’s been no follow-ups, no attempts at a revival. If anyone was a fan of this character they had to get their fill between 1991 and 1993 because, after that, that was it. Say goodbye to James Bond Jr. because the franchise was never coming back.

But we aren’t here to discuss the end of the series; instead we’re going to look at the beginning to see whether this show was worth all this investment in the first place. And I have to say, just from this first episode, the answer is, “not really.” It’s a very early 1990s cartoon, with simple adventures that are told, by and large, with little in the way of continuity. This first episode is really the only one that has any kind of setup or continuity that we even have to discuss because, unlike the rest of the series, this one desperately tries to tie itself into James Bond lore instead of just playing in its own toy box. That doesn’t make this episode better than the rest, mind you, because the whole thing is so simple, and so facile, that I don’t know how any kid could have even cared about the series at all.

We open with a car chase, as a couple of agents of S.C.U.M. (Saboteurs and Criminals United in Mayhem) chase after a classic Aston Martin through the countryside. It’s the same Aston Martin as from Goldfinger, with the retractable shield screen included, but the driver isn’t the Bond we know. Instead it’s his nephew, Junior, who got the car from his uncle and was driving it to get to his new school. After escaping the S.C.U.M. goons, Junior rides his car to safety at Warfield Academy, where’s starting the year to… well, presumably to get a degree but also, one would suppose, learning how to be a secret agent.

The school is packed with characters based on characters from the movie series. There’s Tracy Milbanks, Junior’s love interest (based on Tracy from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service). We also have Horace "I.Q." Boothroyd III, the grandson of Q, who is Junior’s new roommate as well as his tech genius. And there’s Gordon "Gordo" Leiter, the son of Felix Leiter, who quickly becomes one of Junior’s new friends. And anyone at the school not based on one of Bond’s characters at least knows of the secret agent (making him not-so-secret) and is familiar with his adventures. Just about everyone at the school is there to help Junior in his future exploits.

But Junior needs to be careful as S.C.U.M. is out there, and they want something Junior has: his Aston Martin. There’s a bit of tech in there the villains could use, and if they get it they could hold any government on the planet hostage. Why that tech would be in a car driven by a teenager isn’t made clear, but once S.C.U.M. steals the car, with Tracy hidden inside, Junior and his team have to gear up and go on the offensive to save their friend, get the car back, and stop all of S.C.U.M.’s nefarious schemes.

This first episode isn’t great, but it does show off all of James Bond Jr.’s strengths and weaknesses. When done subtly, such as giving Junior his uncle’s car, the series manages to tie itself to past lore in a creative way. Little references, like the leader of S.C.U.M., the Scumlord, being a clear homage to Blofeld complete with an animal to pet, work in the show’s favor. It illustrates that the creators working on the show had some love for classic James Bond and they wanted to try and tie this series in well.

But then we get into the meat of the series and it very quickly falls apart. For starters, the schemes the villains hatch aren’t that interesting. They steal Junior’s car, which he wouldn’t even care about if not for the fact that Tracy is inside, and that’s their big move. EVen when they have Tracy, and later Junior, captured they don’t really do anything. There’s no fear that the heroes will ever be harmed, and the villains are soon cartoonish and inept that they fail to enliven the story in any real way.

It certainly doesn’t help that Junior already feels like a fully-formed super spy. He’s sent to the school ostensibly to learn all the skills he needs in his life ahead, one expects, in MI6, but he’s already driving around in a fancy, tricked out car, battling against nefarious villains, all while working to save the world. I’m not exactly certain what this school is supposed to teach him that he hasn’t already learned being the nephew of the world’s most famous secret agent, but certainly his skill level completely undercuts not only the setup for this series but any kind of tension the series could have tried for as well.

I would liken the characters on James Bond Jr. to the cast of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which started airing two years earlier and was a clear template. Take a franchise that people like, make it more kid-friendly and colorful, and then give the heroes simple adventures to go on while the villains hatch dumb plans and shake their fists when their schemes inevitably fail. It’s a copy-and-paste job that feels perfectly 1990s and, with the right franchise, I could see this working. I was a dumb kid that watched the Turtles, and I willingly admit their cartoon adventures in the 1990s were silly and facile. That didn’t stop me, as a kid, from enjoying their antics in the slightest.

The key difference between the two shows (aside from the fact that I think the production values and overall story quality on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) is that one was a franchise on the rise which was only getting more and more popular with children, and the other was James Bond. While that franchise still had life in it, it wasn’t a series that kids cared about. It was your father’s espionage series, and as I kid of that era I can attest that most of us didn’t care at all about Bond. I could see the thought being that parents would get their kids to watch this and they’d enjoy it together, but there’s nothing here really for the parents to care about, and if the parents weren’t going to bother, the kids were going to go watch something else instead. The basic production here simply doesn’t make sense.

Overall, then this show really doesn’t work. Given time (which, it did have sixty five episodes to get going) I could see the show eventually finding itself and making something interesting… but it’s hard to think it could do that in one season, where the animators, writers, and everyone else had to crank these out quickly to meet the tight deadlines. Had a season two been made, maybe things would have gotten better… but I also wouldn’t have held my breath on that.

All things considered, though, this show was a hard sell for all involved. A spin-off of a franchise that kids didn’t care about, coupled with episodes that weren’t all that engaging for parents, spelled a series that would die a rather quick death. Which, then, it did. Maybe in the right hands, and at the right time, a James Bond kids cartoon could have worked, but this wasn’t it, that’s for sure. And as this series premiere illustrates, there isn’t much reason to go back and revisit the series again. Once was enough.