Thursday, 7 November 2013



Mr Bean heads to the park for his lunch and makes his sandwich. Brilliant scenes with Mr Bean washing lettuce in his sock and making tea in his hot water bottle.

Mr Bean's car



Mr. Bean's car, a 1976-1980 British Leyland Mini 1000, developed its own character of sorts over the series and was central to several antics, such as Mr. Bean getting dressed in it, driving while sitting in an armchair strapped to the roof, starting it with a number of locks and keys, or attempting to avoid a parking garage toll by driving out through the entrance.



At first, it was an orange 1969 BMC Mini MK II (registration RNT 996H), but this was destroyed in an off-screen crash at the end of the first episode. From then on, the car was a 1976 – 1980 model (registration SLW 287R), Austin Citron Green in colour with a matte black bonnt.
The Mini also had a number of innovative security measures. For example, Bean uses a bolt-latch and padlock, rather than the lock fitted to the car, and removes the steering wheel instead of the key. These formed a running joke in several episodes, at one point deterring a car thief. However, after changing parking spaces with another car and exact same make in "Back to School Mr. Bean", his car is crushed by a tank. Fortunately for him, his padlock still remains, and he hurries off to "hijack" another car with the same colour scheme.

Wednesday, 6 November 2013

Teddy


       Teddy is Mr. Bean's teddy bear and perhaps Mr. Bean's best friend. The little brown bear is a knitted oddity with button eyes and sausage-shaped limbs, invariably ending up broken in half or in various other states of destruction and disfiguration. Although Teddy is inanimate, Mr. Bean often pretends it is alive. For example, when Mr. Bean hypnotises Teddy, he snaps his fingers and the bear's head falls backwards as if it has fallen asleep instantly (Bean used his finger to prop Teddy's head up). Mr. Bean behaves as if the bear is real, buying it a Christmas present or trying not to wake it in the mornings.



Over the years, Teddy has undergone several changes. When it debuted on "The Trouble with Mr. Bean", it had a smaller head. Two episodes later, its head reached its current size, but its "eye" was not present until Bean placed gold thumb tacks on its face. The "eyes" have since been replaced with two small white buttons sewn over Teddy's face, giving it a distinct image.

Bean was developed while Atkinson was studying for his master's degree in Electrical Engineering at Oxford University. A sketch featuring the character was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in the early 1980s.



One of Bean's earliest appearances occurred at the "Just For Laughs" comedy festival in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1987. When programme co-ordinators were scheduling Atkinson into the festival programme, Atkinson insisted that he perform on the French-speaking bill rather than the English-speaking programme. Having no French dialogue in his act at all, programme co-ordinators could not understand why Atkinson wanted to perform on the French bill. As it turned out, Atkinson's act at the festival was a test platform for the Mr. Bean character and Atkinson wanted to see how the silent character's physical comedy would fare on an international stage with a non-English speaking audience.



The name of the character was not decided until after the first programme had been produced, with a number of other vegetable-influenced names, such as "Mr. Cauliflower", being explored.Atkinson cited the earlier comedy character Monsieur Hulot, created by French comedian and director Jacques Tati, as an influence on the character. Stylistically, Mr. Bean is also very similar to early silent films, relying purely upon physical comedy, with Mr. Bean speaking very little dialogue (although like other live-action TV series of the time, it features a laugh track). This has allowed the series to be sold worldwide without any significant changes to dialogue. In November 2012, Atkinson told newspaper The Daily Telegraph he was looking at retiring the character, as "someone in their 50s being childlike becomes a little sad".

Mr Bean

Mr. Bean is a British situation comedy television programme series of fourteen 25-minute episodes written by and starring Rowan Atkinson as the title character.



Based on a character originally developed by Atkinson while he was studying for his master's degree at Oxford University, the series follows the exploits of Mr. Bean, described by Atkinson as "a child in a grown man's body", in solving various problems presented by everyday tasks and often causing disruption in the process. Bean rarely speaks, and the largely physical humour of the series is derived from his interactions with other people and his unusual solutions to situations. The series was influenced by physical performers such as Jacques Tati and comic actors from silent films.


During its five-year run, the series gained large UK audience figures, including 18.74 million for the 1991 episode "The Trouble with Mr. Bean". The series has been the recipient of a number of international awards, including the Rose d'Or. The show has been sold in 245 territories worldwide, and has inspired an animated cartoon spin-off, two feature films, and an appearance at the London 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony.