Craig Ferguson portrays James Bond in peril on ‘Late Late Show’

Craig Ferguson kicked off Thursday’s episode of “The Late Late Show� with one of the more adorable cold opens in recent memory, creating a scene à la James Bond with Joan, a giggly, mild-mannered audience member in an eye patch.

As Joan, a recent transplant from Chicago, explained to Ferguson, she injured her eye during a fall getting out of bed — hardly the stuff Bond villains are made of. But no matter! Her completely nonthreatening demeanor worked perfectly for the purposes of the impromptu sketch.

PHOTOS: Celebrities by The Times

With Joan as the villain and Ferguson as Bond (of course), all that was missing was a henchman. That’s where Secretariat, “The Late Late Show’s� pantomime horse, came in handy.

Ferguson even provided Joan with a bit of menacing dialogue: “Good evening, Mr. Bond. Don’t be afraid of my bubbly Jacuzzi, it’s just deadly piranhas.�

Move over, Javier Bardem. There’s a new villain in town.

ALSO:

NBC renews ‘Hannibal�

The British invade American TV

Sharon Tate-Megan Draper ‘Mad Men’ theory lights up the Internet

twitter.com/MeredithBlake