Mr bean

[George 1978]

I did read on another website that it wasn't the then portrayed Queen Elizabeth II that Bean headbutted in the queue but her mother. I have to admit that even then I used to think that the Queen and the Queen Mother were one and the same as they were both called Elizabeth.

Bean was more mainstream and not post-watershed - the videos sold in Woolwoths and WHSmith's at the time were a U certificate - I would hazard a guess that Benny Hill's work would have got a PG or even a 12 had it been released in the same way.

[beccabear67]

Re: Mr bean

I was often the one in the corner of the school playground doing nothing but standing there waiting to for the bell or whistle to go so that I could go back inside.

I can relate. Usually there was a group of non-sports boys and tom girls I could fit in with, we played something called square ball which needed four people and new people would come in when one of the four made a mistake in the rules and then they would wait to get back in. Also red light/green light, frozen statues tag, mother may I and simon says. There was even a rage for marbles at one time that crossed over the clique lines. I was actually very lucky with my primary school, it was junior high school where things got physically violent and there was theft as we merged with the supposedly upper class area bordering ours, they had little gangs and were all about having the right brand of clothes or you got hit (usually from behind). You would've done better at our primary school I'm sure, can't say for the next one up. I left it for the worst part of town and went to one with Native Americans in a big subsidized complex next to the school, and it also catered to pregnant teen-age girls (had a day care in the basement), had no trouble there at all, although I saw other people physically fight, boys and girls.

I could never watch Mr. Bean, I don't know why, I can watch Black Adder! I got attacked as a child badly once, plus had a brother that used to hit a bit, and that instinct that you are going to get thumped is still in me after fifty plus years! My BF calls it FEAR, false evidence appearing real. I even took martial arts in my early teens at the instigation of a boy friend (he had three girlfriends while I knew him, we were just good friends) and that did help me a lot I guess (once I got to where I could throw a punch at someone which was a huge barrier for me). Maybe this is why I can't watch Mr. Bean (even though he has a teddy)? I can watch Monsieur Hulot films, and liked Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em quite a bit.

Mr. Bean with a turkey on his head is about all I remember actually laughing at.

[George 1978]

Re: Mr bean

I am very sorry to hear that you were abused as a child, Victoria - it must have taken a lot of courage to even write that on here.

I know from when I was at school that children can be cruel - I was often the one in the corner of the school playground doing nothing but standing there waiting to for the bell or whistle to go so that I could go back inside. If you look at the School Days forum on here, I have contributed two a couple of threads and mentioned that my school days was no bed of roses by any means.

I think that when it comes to comedy sketches, (and the swimming pool one in The Curse Of... is one good example as you have mentioned), it is worth measuring the quality of the audience laughter - what I mean is, does the audience laughter sound as if they are laughing with the protagonist or laughing at him? (The old Wogan / David Icke interview comes to mind here). If they are laughing at him rather than with him and it does sound malicious then there might be something about the sketch that isn't quite right. After all, we take audience laughter for granted when we watch comedy - I for one would feel awkward if I watched a comedy without a laughter track (even if it was canned laughter) and thought that I was the only person in the world who found it funny.

[Victoria O'Keefe]

Re: Mr bean

I don't like it when helpless members of society get caught up in Bean's antics such as babies. I was a victim of abuse as a child and the emotional scars have faded but never healed. Whenever a child causes trouble for Bean like the two boys or the little blonde girl that takes his trunks, I remain frightened that Bean is capable of violence against those children for the sake of revenge. Just like my father who liked to throw me around when he was in a rage :'(

[Mulletino]

Re: Mr bean

I think I preferred Mr Bean when he was just a bit happless and not overly aware of his actions being "different", when it got to the "deliberately mean" type stages then it lost its appeal to me.

[George 1978]

Re: Mr bean

The Mrs Merton and Malcolm sitcom from the late 1990s also springs to mind, where unlike Mr Bean, the programme did have one or two complaints about the fact that it was making fun of mental illness as well which was something that I don't remember about any Mr Bean episode.

[George 1978]

Re: Mr bean

I remember my Gran didn't like Mr Bean because she thought it was making fun of the mentally challenged.

I do sympathise considering that I have Asperger Syndrome myself, but I think that in the long run, Mr Bean is an affectionate way of looking at someone who is different to most other people. One could say that about Arkwright with his speech impediment, or even Frank Spencer and his mannerisms. The Lou and Andy characters in Little Britain could also be added to list because of the use of a wheelchair.

Have a look at the ending of the cinema scene in The Curse Of... when the Nightmare On Elm Street film has finished. Bean does behave in the cinema rather like someone who is, shall we say, disturbed, or is like some child who plays up in class. If anything, I warmed quite well to the character who often finds everyday things that most people take for granted in life or find easy, rather difficult, and tries to find his own solution to them.

Also, in the Goes to Town episode when they are at the disco and his partner meets another man and Bean is obviously and understandably jealous, getting his own back by shutting down the power supply at the end - the issues of relationships amongst those who are different is more than apparent there.

[Richard1978]

Re: Mr bean

I remember my Gran didn't like Mr Bean because she thought it was making fun of the mentally challenged.

[Victoria O'Keefe]

Re: Mr bean

Maybe it's something to do with the tarnished image of Rolf Harris and memories of his old learn to swim PIF, but there's something disturbing about this Mr Bean screenshot from this angle. I know it's the STUPID SWIMWEAR the little girl is wearing is why her bare buttocks are in full view of the camera, bur I wonder if the scene would've been scrapped or shot at a different angle if it had been suggested during the Harris scandal? It's kind of surprising that even in 1990, they transmitted it like this.

[George 1978]

Re: Mr bean

Just looked on the IMDB and saw that it was "stuntwoman" Tina Maskell who played the Queen (credited as: "The Royal") - one would have thought that they would have got Jeanette Charles even Kate Robbins (cf Spitting Image) or someone like that! Maskell seems to have a lot of stunt roles to her name, so I assume that being headbutted would be a walk in the park to her!

Does anyone think that the later episodes (1993 onwards) were not quite as great as the early ones? Could this be something to do with Thames being replaced by Central (in the respect of the ITV company that Tiger Television made the episodes for?)

[George 1978]

Re: Mr bean

Of course, it wasn't the real Queen in the episode, but a Caroline Aherne-alike actress playing the part where she was unharmed - there seems to be a lot of "padding" in the sketch of Bean looking at his fingernails, spraying into his mouth, putting half a postcard into his breast pocket and all that.

Mr Bean does a few things which could be seen as "harassing, alarming and distressing" (to quote that old cliché again) if he similar things in public in real life, in other words, Mr [sic] Public would be arrested and even go to prison of he copied it for himself. Referring to the Goes to Town episode, when going back to the days when electric plugs had a "batteries not included" aspect towards electrical items and one had to wire them up, putting the Live, Earth and Neutral in the right place - when he buys a new television set we see Bean twist the wires into the plug which is something that would not work in real life - in fact, a Central continuity announcer had reminded Midlands viewers not to copy him doing that with a plug at the end of one of the mid 1990s repeats. The videos always got a U certificate and not a PG one by either the BBFC or the VSC.

Another was the fact that Mind the Baby was postponed twice in 1993 and 1994 because of the similarities with the storyline and the James Bulger murder. The fact that Bean takes an unrelated baby to a seaside destination (Southsea?) seems rather alarming when one thinks of child abductions and the like especially in the early to mid 1990s. For the 1993 showing it was replaced by the first showing of the Room 426 episode set in a hotel (and ironically enough, set in another costal destination), and was postponed again around a year later because of the trial and the distress, and was replaced by a repeat of a previous episode. It was eventually shown a few months after the Bulger murder trial was concluded.

Various episodes have been seen on one of the children's satellite channels (Nickelodeon?) and have been heavily edited, and I believe that at least a minute here and there had been chopped from each episode for the TX of it, although I assume that it was to allow more advertising on the channel in that half hour. Mind you, for such a channel which shows cartoons and all that, showing episodes of live action Mr Bean does look a bit out of place, especially as they have been seen on ITV channels already, and the fact that American series more tailored to young people would usually be shown on that channel. They edited out Bean with the turkey on his head during Merry Christmas in case it frightened younger viewers.

The ITC did receive the odd complaint in one or two Mr Bean episodes - they got at least one during The Trouble With when the protagonist was getting dressed in his car on his way to the dentist and of course, and showed his underwear, and probably one or two others as well. Roger Sloman playing someone who was having a heart attack (and Bean attempting first aid on him) was also controversial when it was first seen in 1992 - Sloman also played the blind man in the first episode ironically as Bean thought that he was looking at him getting changed into his swimming trunks. As we mentioned the swimming pool episode - the same episode also contains Bean trying to leave a car park via the entrance instead of the exit in order to save money and trying to get past the barriers.

At a time when Political Correctness was very much "in fashion", I suppose that the Bean character was knocked back a bit in the early to mid 1990s for trying to break the rules, but I suppose that if the character was just like Mr Average and all that, it would have made a an episode that people would probably not bother to watch. The question was, did Charlie Chaplin have all these problems in his day considering he was a silent actor? Benny Hill was accused of the "chase the dolly birds" seaside postcard factor when he was on his occasional Wednesday 8.00 pm specials in the 1970s and 1980s but Hill hardly ever got as much criticism as that.

Goodnight Mr Bean was not the end of the character for he also did the Hair episode that ITV had never shown - also, he continued to appear as guests on shows in the late 1990s after the sitcoms ended such as the National Lottery and Live and Kicking and all that, meaning that Bean was alive and well and continuing. I believe that Bean is timeless and does not have an ending - the problem is that Rowan Atkinson aging throughout recent years is one obstacle, although when one thinks about it, Bean is supposed to be a representation of a child in an adult's body, and so therefore, he is not meant to be of a certain age. He did that Snickers advert a couple of years ago - was that the most recent thing that Atkinson has done as Bean?

[Victoria O'Keefe]

Re: Mr bean

I occasionally think about what fictional characters do after the story is over, and how their lives might continue. However, one can overthink such things, particularly in the area of slapstick where IRL such antics would often result in arrest, injury or death.

I mean, in one Mr Bean outing he literally headbutts the Queen. Tell me that wouldn't have serious consequences.

[80sChav]

Re: Mr bean

I didn't even know that this thread had existed! - thanks for bumping it up, Victoria.

I always enjoy watching the Curse of Mr Bean. Now, those boys would roughly be the same age as myself when the episode was made in 1990 - in fact, they both reminded me of two lads who were in my year at school!

I do like how they gave him a helping hand (or rather, foot) to get him into the water from the high platform, and that his trunks came off in the water which the girl fishes out of the water, so he has to get out of the pool naked before causing the old "harassment, alarm and distress" cliché to some teenage girls getting out of their changing rooms.

Angus Deayton makes two appearances in that episode - the first is in the swimming pool sketch, telling Bean to get out of the pool when he tries to get in via the orange kids' slide, hence Bean going right up to the top diving board before bottling it. The second appearance is when Bean sits on a park bench in the second half and makes a sandwich, and Deayton plays the straight man there. I doubt that they were both supposed to be the same character however.

I have to say that I love Mr Bean and the fact that the 1990s was only 20 hours old when we first saw his first episode. I suppose that from Merry Christmas Mr Bean in 1992 it became themed episodes instead of unrelated sketches, although it did return to unrelated sketches for the final couple of episodes - the episode's title referring to one of the sketches only.

On Monday 5th July 1993 (according to my research) I had some mock examinations all day at school, and what did I find on ITV when I got home that evening? A repeat of the very first Mr Bean episode where he was in an examination hall and was trying to cheat by copying Paul "Watching" Bown's exam answers, and I had enough of exams for that day! Talk about de ja vu! Great to see Trevor McDonald lookalike Rudolph Walker as the invigilator in that sketch, and that Love They Neighbour was not quite the end of his acting career.

And for years I had a thing about the boy's mother who had appeared in the dentists' waiting room in The Trouble With... I got her autograph a few years ago when I wrote to her via her agent.

Words can not summarise rowan's Skills as Mr Bean in my book George - he was just so amazingly amazingly funny (though at times a tad o.t.t) but generaly in general aamazingly funny. I used to love him as Bean in the 90s as did my Auntie's Daughter (not my direct Auntie by Mum or Dad)


What Rowan did was amazingly simple but so ironic as if he was reflecting life through slow- motion as in that was all half an hour in front of him - but phew was he talented. Par the old Silent Movies not many actors/actress' can match this skill level (or any I know of anyway0 to such a constant and consistant level!

I would love to see Rowan reprise his roles a bit more regular as Bean, but after seeing him in the Papers over the Weekend - he has has lost his trademark face and looks - which sort of killed his look as a kid who never grew up (in his 30s/40s age) as he he appeared to beportraying as Bean in the 90s (which if so - please don't reprise the role/character would be my wish!! Regardless though what memories this guy provided and in the main through add-libbing (though never talking generaly).

I guess it was guys like Rowan and David Jason who inspired me in the add-libing fields of life - especialy attending confrences where add-libbing was a "needed" and having questions fired at me in varying commitee roles by nature of "what if you got asked this or sucha question" and i'd say "I'll do what David Jason did/or morever un-bekown in the back of my mind too Rowan was inspiring me all the time a-long too!

80sChav

[Richard1978]

Re: Mr bean

One of the boys at the swimming pool looks like one of cousins did at the time, which makes it even more funny.

[Victoria O'Keefe]

Re: Mr bean

I have a family photo from that era taken at my local swimming centre of the beginners swimmers class and EVERY ONE of the small girls is wearing some variation of the swimsuit the little girl in The Curse of Mr Bean wore.

And of course even if eighties culture and fashion hadn't "hung over", since there was no year zero, 1990 is part of the previous decade.