Mr Bean

Mr Bean is a fourteen-part television series centered on the character Mr Bean, a grown man who seems to have been born yesterday. Rowan Atkinson, a versatile comic actor, portrays the role. Between 1990 and 1995, the shows were shot, and the series spawned a variety of short specials, a cartoon adaptation, and two feature-length films. Bean is ostensibly an adult, but he acts like a teenager, and his misbehavior gets him into trouble on a regular basis.

He bumbles through life with reckless abandon, almost indifferent to the chaos he creates. Furthermore, everything is exciting in a childish way, and everything must be played with. Even (especially?) some things he shouldn’t, such as Harrods’ Christmas displays! Though he barely talks (the sitcom’s main strength is visual humor), his verbal outbursts reveal his voice to be as socially inappropriate as his actions and as funny as his signature tweed blazer.

Bean’s home changes between episodes, but he never leaves his tiny, filthy apartment, which he shares with Teddy, his teddy bear, whom Bean seems to believe can interact with him! Irma Gobb is his long-term (and long-suffering) girlfriend (although whether or not he understands the concepts of romance and intimacy is uncertain).

When he meets new people, he becomes concerned about his strange behavior. Indeed, the title sequence suggests that he is an extraterrestrial; he has difficulty coping with daily circumstances and seems to be learning how to live life each time he does something that would seem easy to most people (like sitting an exam; go to church; stuff a turkey, etc. ). The fact that his presence interferes with TV reception lends credence to this hypothesis.

The thing that makes Bean so frightening to those who come into contact with him, and so fascinating and amusing to us as viewers, is that it’s difficult to figure out who he is. It may be that he lacks social skills, but we don’t know what motivates him; what his hopes, dreams, and fears are; what makes him tick. The fascination with which we observe this strange specimen go about his everyday activities is both captivating and hilarious.