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Mr. Bean is a British comedy television series starring Rowan Atkinson. The programme was produced by Tiger Television, later renamed Tiger Aspect productions (a company in which Atkinson has a stake), for Thames Television and originally shown on ITV. The show in America was broadcast on PBS intermittently over the past few years, and is now available on DVD.
In the show, Atkinson plays a selfish, sometimes ingenious buffoon who frequently gets into hilarious situations due to his various schemes and contrivances.
The humor of the show is very physical (as opposed to verbal), and the main character speaks very little, if at all, during most shows. It features Mr. Bean trying to undertake what would normally be considered simple tasks, such as going swimming, redecorating or taking an exam. The humour largely comes from his original solutions to any problems, and a total disregard for others when solving them.
Mr. Bean is the star of the show, and doesn't share the spotlight with anyone else. Other characters exist simply to provide victims for his various antics, and besides the star, there is only one recurring character, his sometime "girlfriend" Irma Gobb.
The show's title sequence (used from the second episode onward) depicts Mr. Bean falling from the sky in a beam of light. It is not clear whether this is meant as a literal depiction of the character's origins, but it might as well be: he is alone in the world, is frequently childlike, and often seems unaware of basic aspects of the way the world works.
The words sung by the choir that occur in the series are:
- Ecce homo qui est faba (Behold the man who is a bean) Sung at beginning
- Finis partis primae (End of part one) Sung at before the break
- Vale homo qui est faba (Farewell, man who is a bean) Sung at end
Episode list
- Mr. Bean,
- The Return of Mr. Bean,
- The Curse of Mr. Bean,
- Mr. Bean Goes to Town,
- The Trouble with Mr. Bean,
- Mr. Bean Rides Again,
- Merry Christmas Mr. Bean,
- Mr. Bean in Room 426,
- Mind the Baby Mr. Bean,
- Do It Yourself Mr. Bean,
- Back to School Mr. Bean,
- Tee Off Mr. Bean,
- Good Night Mr. Bean,
- Hair by Mr. Bean of London
and two Never-before-seen-on-TV sketches: "Bus Stop" and "Library"
A movie, Bean, was made based on the show in 1997, but this broke with the show's tradition by having a subplot with more developed characters. Instead of being the sole show, Mr. Bean now played second fiddle to the travails of a typical suburban, American family (having been sent to America by a group of acquaintances who wanted a break from having him messing up their lives).
The character was revived again in the 2002 animated series, Mr. Bean. Some people have questioned the point of an animated Mr. Bean - although he is now capable of far stranger adventures (and facial expressions), they lack the interest generated when it was an actual person doing it.
An earlier, unrelated character called Mr. Bean the Postman, played by Adrian Edmondson, had appeared in a 1980s episode of The Comic Strip Presents entitled "Dirty Movie".