Bond Gun Barrel

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Wait...is that scope bleeding?

An imitation of the sequence that precedes The Teaser in almost every James Bond movie: looking down the barrel of the gun at the agent who turns and fires, and a wash of red drips over the screen. The James Bond theme music or a variant may play over this sequence. Try not to think about why the blood appears to be dripping down inside the gun barrel.

The Other Wiki calls this "Gun barrel sequence".

See also Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You.

Examples of Bond Gun Barrel include:

Advertising

  • An "eat five fruits and vegetables a day" commercial had Bond pull a banana at the gun barrel and instead of blood, juice flowed down.

Anime and Manga

  • Fist of the North Star did this when Kenshiro was attacked by raiders with crossbows; he kicks the arrows back at them and we see the view from one of the raiders' scopes as blood comes flowing down.
  • Sonic X pulls this one - in Francis's imagination about their supply teacher - she laughs at the mental image, not knowing that Mr Syewart IS really a secret agent.

Comic Books

  • In an Elseworlds L.E.G.I.O.N. annual parodying James Bond, Lobo, rather than shooting the barrel, spits it.

Film

  • Casino Royale incorporates the sequence into the action of its opening.
  • The sixth Friday the 13th had this with Jason swinging a machete at the onlooker.
  • In Flushed Away, the gun barrel is actually a DVD that Roddy shoots with a suction cup dart to drop into the player.

Live-Action TV

Clifford: Hey, man! Get that thing offa me!

  • Appears in the commericially released Highlander blooper reels. The scene starts off as it does in the actual ep, but when the character walking with Duncan says "I didn't catch your name" Paul answers "Bond...James Bond." He does the Bond shot and both start singing the Bond theme tune. This is probably a shout out to the fan campaigns for Adrian Pault to play Bond.

Music

  • Sheryl Crow uses it at the beginning of her video for the song "Tomorrow Never Dies", the theme song for the Bond movie of the same name.
    • Madonna's video for "Die Another Day" ends with her going through a door - and cuts to her silhouette in the gunbarrel, which promptly gets the red wash.

Video Games

  • The James Bond video games themselves have ripped off the red wash at the end of this sequence to symbolize when the player dies.
    • There was also an ad for The World Is Not Enough on the Nintendo 64 asking if players ever wondered what it was like to be Bond, followed by a fat guy jumping around as shots were fired through the barrel.
  • Two "gun-barrel-cam" shots were added to the Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes: The first is just before you fight Ocelot (the barrel of his revolver, obviously), and the second is just before you fight the tank (with the tank's barrel being used). They're over relatively quickly, but given the other shout-outs to Bond in the series, the homage is obvious.
  • The ZX Spectrum game Zub opens with the title character, wearing a black version of his spacesuit and with a bowtie, re-enacting the gun barrel scene.

Web Original

Western Animation

  • American Dad parodied this by having the gun barrel actually shoot Stan, with Stan just now realizing that the scope is a gun instead of an eyeball.
  • Homer Simpson does this in the Couch Gag for the season six episode "And Maggie Makes Three" (the episode with Homer changing his "Don't Forget; You're Here Forever" sign to "Do It For Her" by covering it with the missing pictures of Maggie), later recycled for "The Springfield Connection" (the episode in which Marge joins the police force), only the James Bond music was at a lower key.
  • Used in a Dexter's Laboratory episode with a pie, the whole of which was a parody of Bond films.
  • Likewise, the U.S. Acres episodes with "Double-O Orson".
  • Used in an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants where the gun barrel was actually Patrick looking through a straw.
  • Also used in an episode of Johnny Test, only with Johnny and Dukey shooting a green goo at the camera.
  • Robot Chicken pulls this in, of all things, a Christmas special. But it goes one step further by spoofing the entire opening sequence of Casino Royale with Santa killing a child who's made the naughty list.[1]
    • Also with Ross Hashanah, who shoots through a Star of David. "Don't get blood on the new carpet."
  • Eek! The Cat did this once. The gun barrel occurred as normal, except EEK emerged, dressed in a tuxedo. Instead of firing a gun, he raised a wrapped straw to his mouth and blew the paper wrapping off, causing the signature "bleed" effect. The wrapping hit Sharkey the Sharkdog in the eye. The James Bond theme was replaced with a version of EEK's theme but done in the Bond-theme style.
  • Appears in Logorama when Ronald kills a Michelin cop.
  • An episode of the Ace Ventura series had this - with Ace farting (a reference to his habit of talking out of his ass).
  • In the Total Drama Action episode "Dial M For Murder", Chris does this. But instead of shooting a gun, he throws a tomato at the camera.
  1. Jaden exposed himself to a maid And That's Terrible.