The 15 Most Cringe-Worthy James Bond Puns

James Bond, as conceived by author Ian Fleming, is a suave but professional secret agent who doubles as an assassin. He is cold, detached and is, in Fleming's words, "an anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department."

Clearly, there's enough room for interpretation in there to assume he was also deeply fond of boner jokes, because that's exactly what filmmakers did with the character once he started being portrayed by swarthy British types on the silver screen. As you'll see, some of the Bond double entendres were almost physically painful.

Bond is in bed on top of Dr. Christmas Jones, a brilliant nuclear scientist convincingly portrayed by Denise Richards, who, like all brilliant female nuclear scientists, looks like a supermodel and dresses like Lara Croft.

Then James says, "I thought Christmas only comes once a year."

The saddest part is knowing the entire reason they named her "Christmas" was so they could set up that orgasm joke at the end of the movie. So in the Bond world, girls can grow up to be nuclear physicists, but they still get stripper names.

Bond girls (as you'll see) tend to get worse names than this, and Christmas was probably something like "Vixen McLegs" or "Chesty Evildoer" in earlier drafts. Then, they thought up the joke and went back in with Microsoft Word and reverse engineered all the "Aslyn Boobsaplenty" entries into "Christmas Jones." Yes, screenwriters get paid good money to do things like that.

Groan Factor: 4.5

In this amazing scene, Bond is wrestling with bad guy Kananga in a shark-infested pool when he causes Kananga to imbibe an air capsule. Instead of just spitting it out (since it's clearly just in his mouth and not lodged down his esophagus) Kananga gets a panicked look on his face, inflates like a balloon, flies up to the ceiling and explodes. This is witnessed by Bond's love interest, Solitare, who nonetheless asks Bond, "Where's Kananga?"

Bond replies, "Oh, he always did have an inflated opinion of himself."

We know what you're thinking. We made this whole bit up, or confused it with something that happened in a Road Runner cartoon. But, no, what might be the silliest death scene in just about any movie in history, did in fact take place in Live and Let Die. Perhaps you would like to see it for yourself.

What makes the double entendre especially ridiculous is that Solitare witnesses the events before she asks Bond where Kananga is. There are all sorts of better questions she could ask, such as, "How the fuck did Kananga just turn into a human balloon and explode on the ceiling?"

What's even more maddening is the fact that Bond's reply doesn't answer the question. "'Where's Kananga' you ask? I killed him by inflating him, and he's over there in the shark tank, and on the walls and ceiling." That's the right answer. Replying that Kananga had an inflated opinion of himself is like a friend asking you if you've seen where he left his gloves and replying, "Your gloves are fuzzy."

Groan Factor: 5

Film: Moonraker

On his way to rescue love interest Dr. Holly Goodhead (that's her character's real name, we're sorry), James Bond tangles with the bad guy's boa constrictor and kills it with a ballpoint pen that's really a hypodermic needle.

Hugo Drax asks, "Why did you break up the encounter with my pet python?"

Bond says, "I discovered it had a crush on me."

What makes this especially cringe-worthy is that Hugo's line is so transparently a set up that exists for no other reason than to facilitate the groan-inducing pun. Does Drax really not know why Bond killed the snake rather than allow it to kill him? Would a normal person reply, "because it was trying to kill me?"

And what of Bond, who by making this retarded attempt at humor is inadvertently implying that the snake had romantic feelings for him? They probably didn't want to explore the subject of bestiality in their big-budget spy movie, but they wrote themselves into it and now they have to live with the result.

And, so do we.

Groan Factor: 5.5

Film: Goldfinger

Bond and Henchman Oddjob, who kills people by throwing his sharpened hat at them, are engaged in a battle royale at Fort Knox. Bond throws Oddjobb's hat at him but it gets lodged in security bars. Oddjob reaches for it just as Bond grabs a conveniently located live power wire large enough to single-handedly light up most of Las Vegas. He electrifies the bars, frying Oddjob to death.

In response to this turn of events a General asks, "Where's your butler friend?"

Bond replies, "Oh, he blew a fuse."

If you don't know, "He blew a fuse" was slang in the '50s and '60s for losing one's temper. Audiences these days probably think Bond was implying that Oddjob was a robot, which is the only circumstance where that pun has even the most tenuous connection to logic.

We should note that this was Bond's second failed attempt to make a good electrocution joke. Earlier in the film, Bond knocks a bad guy into a tub of water and tosses an electric heater in with him, electrocuting the poor dope instantly. As he walks away, Bond mutters "Shocking ... positively shocking," a line so lazy it makes the blown fuse thing look ingenious by comparison.

Groan Factor: 5.5

Film: Die Another Day

Bond is getting a fencing lesson from Madonna, who looks like an S&M grandma with a poodle haircut.

She says, "I see you handle your weapon well."

James Bond counters, "I have been known to keep my tip up."

The whole Madonna cameo is a little weird in the first place, having come off her film-destroying roles in Swept Away and The Next Best Thing.

But anyway, there's Bond, making one of his signature wiener jokes, not to a Bond girl like Denise Richards, but to a woman who no one has thought of as a sex symbol in 15 years. We get the feeling we could stick Bond in the same room with Cloris Leachman and within five minutes he'd be saying, "So, would you like to hear about my boner?"

Groan Factor: 6