16. The Story Is Loosely Adapted From Adam Adamant Lives!
Obviously a lot the Austin Powers story is a James Bond parody but his origin story is not Bond inspired. The origin story of Austin Powers, shown in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, is heavily inspired by Adam Adamant Lives! a BBC produced television show that ran from 1966 to 1967. The original idea for Austin Powers involved a sixties British Secret Service agent in the modern day. For the plot Myers needed Powers to travel to the modern day and he used plot elements from Adam Adamant Lives! to accomplish this. Adam Adamant Lives! follows a Edwardian adventurer called Adam Adamant who is frozen in 1867 by his arch-enemy the Face and wakes up in 1966 where he has to again fight the Face only now in the Sixties. Instead of being frozen in the 1860's and waking up in the 1960's Mike Myers changed the character to be frozen from the 1960's to 1997. Like Austin Powers the character of Adam Adamant suffers from struggling to adapt to his new surroundings but in a role reversal Powers is unable to adapt to any life beyond the Sixties while Adam Adamant struggles to adapt to the Sixties. Another clear influence from the show is the character is Georgia Jones on Vanessa Kensington. Georgia Jones is the granddaughter of Sam Jones, a character who is with Adam Adamant before he was frozen and similarly Vanessa Kensington's mother assisted Austin Powers in the Sixties before he was frozen.