The Trouble with Mr. Bean

"The Trouble with Mr. Bean" is the fifth episode of the television series Mr. Bean. It originally aired on ITV on 1 January 1992.^[1]

Plot

Act 1

It is eight o'clock in the morning. Bean has set several alarms to wake him up, but it is clear that he has no intention of getting out of bed just yet: his grandfather clock chimes the hour to wake him up, but he takes no notice; his battery-powered alarm clock sounds, but he places it in a glass of water to silence it; a hose connected to his coffeemaker sprays hot water on his right foot, but he uses his toe to block the hose. Eventually, fifty minutes later, Bean does get up, makes his bed in his sleep, and after some difficulty shaving when his electric razor catches his nasal hairs, Bean realises that he is late for his dental appointment at nine o'clock.

To save time, he decides to get dressed and brush his teeth while driving to the dentist, using a brick to hold down the accelerator. In the process, Bean accidentally knocks down a bunch of dustbins. In order to put his trousers on, he moves onto the back seat and operates the steering wheel with his feet. After brushing his teeth, he shoots screenwash into his mouth to rinse it. When he spits out the toothpaste, it lands on the buttocks of a man whom Bean passes in his car. The man, perplexed, notices and looks up at a tree above him, thinking that a bird may have done it, then smells it. Bean also pushes the blue Reliant Regal out of the reserved parking space outside the dentist's house/practice for checkup. After that when he sees the traffic policewoman seeing his trousers he notices that he has worn his trousers on top of his pyjama and takes it out and keeps it in his car from the rear window which is a little open and pulls up his zip.

Act 2

Bean arrives at the dental surgery. In the waiting room, he cannot find anything worth reading but a Batman comic book (Batman vol. 1 issue 463) with The Road Warriors on the back cover, which a young boy is already reading (he brought the comic from home). When the boy refuses to let him share the comic, he stealthily pours water from a vase into the boy's lap to make his mother believe he peed on himself, causing her to take him home. After getting the comic, he is immediately called in to see the dentist, Dr. A. M. Peggit (Richard Wilson). While in the chair, when Dr. Peggit turns on the tape recorder playing The Blue Danube, he meddles with the controls on the dentist's chair and the dentist's equipment while his back is turned, even draining Dr. Peggit's cup of coffee with the suction tube.

Eventually, Bean accidentally numbs Dr. Peggit's leg with an injection of Novocaine, causing him to fall over and end up knocked out by an X-Ray blocker he accidentally pulled down along with him. Bean, feeling inconvenienced by this, decides to treat himself – however, he cannot tell which tooth needs attention, so he performs the procedure on all of his own teeth. Just as Dr. Peggit recovers, Bean leaves for breakfast, content with his work.

Act 3

Bean goes to the park for a picnic on his own, and struggles to get into a parking space into which his Mini will only barely fit. While passing the boating lake, Bean spots a young boy who is having difficulty with his remote control boat. Bean generously tries to help him by opening the controller and tweaking some circuitry. Amazingly, the controller now works – but unknown to both Bean and the boy, it is now also controlling an electric wheelchair - with an elderly woman already sitting - behind him. After hogging the boat for some time, and causing mayhem behind him, Bean finally gives the controller back to the boy, but only when (unknown to both of them) the wheelchair is already behind the boy, moving towards him. As Bean moves away, a loud splash is heard, implying that either the boy was knocked into the water by the wheelchair or the wheelchair fell into the water by itself or both.

Act 4

Having found a nice spot in the park, Bean tries to have a picnic. As he prepares his things, an electric wheelchair (from Act 3) moving past to him, unknown to Bean. Meanwhile, a thief tries to steal his Mini, but is foiled by Bean having removed the steering wheel as a precaution. Unfortunately, a nearby wasp takes a liking to Bean's fairy cake and refuses to leave him alone. After trying to catch the wasp by swatting at it, jousting with it, chasing it around, and trapping it in a bottle of orange juice, he swats it between the pages of his book, killing the wasp. Only to pique the interest of an entire swarm of wasps, which attack him. Bean ultimately races away from his picnic site and throws the fairy cake through the window of a nearby car, unaware that the thief who broke into his Mini was trying to steal it, taking wires to scramble them, which is why he did not know how. The wasps then begin harassing the thief, and the wheelchair from Earlier stops by the car.

Continuity

This is the first episode to feature Bean's cuddly toy; Teddy. The version used in this episode had a smaller head in comparison to the one used in later episodes. This is the first time we see Bean's unique technique of immobilising his car by removing the steering wheel (he also used this method in Mr. Bean in Room 426). The Reliant Regal appears parked in a boxed parking space outside the dentist's office. Bean's Mini is seen driving past and off screen. We hear Bean brake, shift into reverse and then reappear directly in front of the Reliant. He slowly pushes it out of its space and onto a single yellow line where it is promptly booked by a passing traffic warden (Caroline Quentin). The traffic warden is also seen in Mr. Bean, The Animated Series.

Bean's odd taste in duvet covers is alluded to in this episode. In this episode the cover depicts The A-Team. Later episodes would feature different designs.

Broadcast and reception

The Trouble with Mr Bean was first broadcast on the ITV network on New Year's Day 1992.

It was also the highest rated episode, with an audience of 18.74 million viewers for the original transmission.^[2]

Legacy

Act 2 also inspires another Mr. Bean, The Animated Series short called "Toothache", while Act 4 inspires another short, "Artful Bean". The part where Mr. Bean got the shaver stuck on his nose was reused in the animated episode "Wanted". The idea of a lamp activating a water hose that sprays on Mr. Bean's foot to wake him up was re-used in the animated episode "Birthday Bear", this time with a clock. A diagram of the clock and hose invention is also featured in the book Mr Bean's Diary, released in 1993.

References

External links

• "The Trouble with Mr. Bean" at the Internet Movie Database