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Mr. Bean
1990 · TV series · 25 min episodes · 1 season
Created by Richard Curtis, Rowan Atkinson
Mr Bean turns simple everyday tasks into chaotic situations and will leave you in stitches as he creates havoc wherever he goes.
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15 comments on Hacker News
> “Iran can't hit back over Soleimani's killing. Who will we take out? Spider-man or SpongeBob SquarePants? They have no real heroes.”
But, fwiw, I don't think I agree with you. Mr Bean is just as fictional as charlie brown, the original intended audience doesn't seem very significant to me at all. Also George costanza is in there and I think 90s-2000s american sitcoms actually have a lot of the kind of character you have in mind.
I always wondered why so many British shows were never broadcast in America. I think the most I ever saw growing up in the 80s and 90s was a bit of monty python, mr bean and fawlty towers on PBS, but otherwise nothing. Were the licensing fees so high that it just wasn't worth it? I suppose you could argue that the style wasn't a perfect fit for American audiences, but even then, having a large source of already produced tv shows must have been worth it to one of the tv stations?
A fond memory I have from about 25 years ago when I was still a kid:
I was flying economy on KLM with my mom and dad, family vacation to Europe. About a few hours prior to landing, the crew put on some Mr. Bean movies. Back then at least on that flight as far as I can still remember, there weren't seatback screens; only those dropdown TV screens on the ceiling above the aisles, so everyone had to watch Mr. Bean.
Well tell you what, Mr. Bean is bloody hilarious and I was a kid. I couldn't help but burst out laughing even though I knew it was bad manners, and in short order the entire cabin was laughing with me. That was a fun day.
One thing that's really nice about silent movies/tv is that it's truely language agnostic. You'd be surprised just how much of the world knows "Mr Bean" for example. It's syndicated just about everywhere in the world and crosses language and culture barriers.
I'm really surprised silent movies/tv isn't more common. Many diverse nations have a need for language agnostic entertainment and it's trivial to syndicate such media throughout the world. Papua New Guinea for example struggles to accomodate all of it's languages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Papua_New_Guinea . Silent media is helpful there to provide a common point of connection across the nation (they used Mr Bean as a mascott for awareness during covid).
Mr Bean travels well because it's universal humour requiring no translation. Has done well in British consciousness for a single 15 episode series too. For slightly related reasons, Norman Wisdom became absolutely massive in the Eastern Bloc because his apolitical slapstick could be portrayed as "struggling against capitalism" :D
To be honest I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. I like a lot of Rowan Atkinson's work but I absolutely hated Mr Bean. Something about watching someone be inept in every possible way causes me a huge amount of stress and isn't something I'm able to derive any sense of enjoyment or fun from. If there were more episodes it might have become more of a cultural meme (like, say, The Simpsons), which I'd find really hard to deal with.
(This doesn't always follow, of course. The UK version of The Office is only 12 regular episodes plus a couple of specials, yet it's impact is still very much felt - at least in the UK - so I don't necessarily see there being a simple correlation between quantity of material and cultural significance. As much as the US series is also excellent I don't think it carries quite the same iconic status or cultural weight here even though there are a lot more episodes - obviously it might do in the US.)
It blew my mind when, as an adult, I learned that there were only 15 episodes of Mr Bean (with one of those being a "Best Bits of Mr Bean" episode!).
I never liked Mr Bean, but I _love_ Blackadder (starting from season 2). Every season plays in a different time period. In the first season I feel the comedy is not yet really fleshed out.
Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry also play roles in Blackadder.
Some of my favorite episodes:
- Captain Cook: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5t4g20
- Ink & Incapability: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x82h2qr
- Dish & Dishonesty: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7zr7d7
- Potato: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x60cdus
Some American comedy (Parks and Rec, Brooklyn 99, Cheers, Community, etc) is amazing. Most of it is crap (2 1/2 Men, Big Bang, 90% of SNL, 100% of "middle aged dude with a family and a wife that's way too good looking" sitcoms).
Some British comedy (Fawlty Towers, Black Books, Fleabag) is amazing. Most of it is crap (Mr Bean, Keeping Up Appearances, One Foot in the grave).
There are some terrible British bands, and some great French cars.
Generalising about culture is pointless.
Try The New Statesman for a hilarious sitcom that sits right between Mr. Bean and Yes, Minister.
I am a long time fan of Rowan Atkinson - though I must say, not of his 'visual comedy' characters like Mr. Bean or Man vs Bee etc. I lean more towards his 'Blackadder' characters (specifically Blackadder 2, 3 and 4. Series 1 was more a 'visual comedy' lead character than the latter, which relied more on a dour character with a sharp verbal wit).
Blackadder 4 in particular added in a darkness to the humour that was really compelling - that last scene in the last episode (when they charge out of the trenches into no mans land) was absolutely haunting and moving. As were the final lines given by the secondary characters (especially Capt. Darling)
EDIT: For those who want to see what I am talking about, here is the final scene (4 minute footage), though I'd highly recommend watching the whole series to really understand the interplay between the characters (especially the pathos of Cpt. Darling vs Cpt. Blackadder) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgyB6lwE8E0
Relevant Mr Bean episode where all these dangerous things are done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYuQctvKNLg
Mr Bean drove a Mini - he famously drove it from an arm chair on top in one episode. Are you thinking of the Trotter brothers?
Heh, there's a painting company that parks their van along Kezar Drive in SF with the name/logo "MVP", which they intend to be read as Most Valuable Painter. It always makes me think of the scene in an old episode of Mr Bean where he paints a room by putting a firecracker in a paint can.
Personally I'd say put the book down and just do it, but then I've been writing since I was 15.
My best advice would be to read a really good novel while you're writing, because there's something about seeing a novel unfold whilst you're writing one that seems to help the process along. You'll likely get through 3-4 books (if you read like me) when writing a novel and this can really help in the beginning because you see something started in the beginning really unfold at the end and it's like 'holy crap, thats the best thing in the entire book', then you have a moment thinking 'well why the fuck aren't I doing something like that!', then you do.
The other advantage in reading while you write is that I think it reassures you when you get blocked, because 99% of the time you'll think the story is going too slowly, however that's because it takes like 10-100 times longer to write something creative than it does to read it. I think it was Richard Curtis (Notting Hill/Bridget Jones/Love Actually) who made this point; he was asked why there's such a large gap between all his great award winning movies and he said quite simply, 'because it takes a lot of time to write something important to me'. This is quite well illustrated by his writing credits, he switches between writing a blockbuster movie and TV comedy (Mr Bean) with his friend from university.