Mind the Baby, Mr. Bean

"Mind the Baby, Mr. Bean" is the tenth episode of the British television series Mr. Bean, produced by Tiger Television and Thames Television for Central Independent Television. It was originally scheduled for broadcast on 1 March 1993 on ITV, but following the murder of Kirkby toddler James Bulger on 12 February 1993, it was delayed for over a year until 25 April 1994.

Plot[]

Act 1: The Baby[]

Mr. Bean decides to go to the funfair at Southsea, Portsmouth; However, he has difficulty finding it especially after some people at the beach give him contradicting directions, but is eventually successful in locating the fair. However, the boot handle of his Mini is not in its locked position and as he reverses and moves forward again, a baby's pram gets caught in the handle, and tags along with him to the funfair.^[2] Once Bean notices the "kidnapped" baby, he initially attempts to leave it in a crowd of chatting mothers with babies, but they are oblivious to both Bean and the baby's presence, and leave the baby behind. Being a responsible citizen, Bean reluctantly goes back for him. Bean, however, sees a policeman outside the amusement park entrance and races to find him, but loses him among a crowd of teenagers wearing fake police helmets from a nearby souvenir shop. Bean eventually realizes that he has no choice but to look after the baby whilst enjoying himself. Bean unchains a Doberman guard dog and uses the chain to tie the baby's pram while taking the baby with him on various rides. First, he goes to the dodgems, but in his hurry to pay the man in charge, he puts the baby's feet on the pedal and has trouble getting back to the dodgem by riding on the back of other dodgems and driving his own while standing up. The man in charge stops the dodgems and confronts Bean, who manages to hide the baby and sneak off.

Act 2: The Kiddie Ride[]

Bean finds a Postman Pat kiddie ride and decides to put the baby inside to cheer him up; however, he then puts nine coins in it so it will play for a long time and keep the baby safe while Bean can go off and have fun on his own. Bean goes on a roller coaster, but quickly gets bored and falls asleep. When the roller coaster ends, the man wakes up Bean by tapping on his shoulder. He then goes to an archery range but accidentally hits the employee on the head, before running off. He tries his hand with a coin pusher game in an amusement arcade and tries to cheat by repeatedly hitting the machine after running out of coins. He succeeds in releasing many coins from the machine, but gets his comeuppance when a young boy (who he tried to stop from doing so earlier) steals his prize. Meanwhile, a long queue builds up by the kiddie ride. Bean, apparently oblivious to the queue, tries to put more coins in when an angry mother confronts him by complaining to him that they have been waiting for half an hour and makes him take the baby out. Disgruntled, Bean obliges.

Act 3: Changing the Nappy[]

While walking the baby in his pram, Bean suddenly detects a bad smell and, after some pondering over the source of the smell, realizes that the baby needs its nappy changed. Unable to find any fresh nappies in the pram, Bean steals a teddy bear from a little girl (pretending that he will look after it while she goes on a merry-go-round), cuts the stuffing out and uses it as a makeshift nappy for the baby while leaving the real nappy to be blown about the funfair and ending up on various people's faces and a man's toffee apple. Unfortunately, the baby cries and Bean tries to calm him with his squeaky toy, but the Doberman he set free earlier on follows the noise (comically barking each time Bean squeaks the toy) and gets close to the baby. Though the dog means no harm towards either Bean nor the baby, Bean lures the Doberman into a ticket booth and locks it inside as the man and his daughter can see the dog in the ticket booth. In order to cheer the baby up, Bean cheats in a game of darts by prematurely piercing cards with his darts and throwing them in such a way that it appears he hit a card with all three darts, winning a goldfish. But the plastic bag carrying the fish leaks, and when the water fountain proves to be not working, Bean desperately puts the fish and the remaining water in his mouth in order to keep it alive. He then plays a round of Bingo. The lady sees that Bean was holding his breath and sees that the fish's tail is coming out. Bean quickly puts the fish back in his mouth. He presses the number 69 and wins, but upon shouting "Bingo!", he reflexively swallows the water, along with the fish. Fortunately, he manages to spit the goldfish out of his mouth and into a fishbowl with another goldfish; Bean notices this and smiles before leaving.

Act 4: The Reunion[]

Later on, the baby cries again, and this time, nothing Bean does calms him down. Bean buys lots of balloons and ties them to the pram, but, although it succeeds in making the baby stop crying, the balloons carry the pram into the sky while Bean is paying the vendor. In panic after seeing this, Bean steals a bow and arrow from the archery game where he hit the employee, sharpens the tip of the wooden arrow with a pencil sharpener and fires it, popping some balloons and allowing the pram to land softly right in the same spot Bean accidentally took it from, where the baby's mother is complaining to the police. The mother is reunited with the baby, much to Bean's relief. The mother then sees that the baby's nappy was the teddy bear he stole from the girl from earlier. As he watches the happy reunion, Bean realizes he forgets to return the squeaky toy, but decides to keep it as a reminder of his little friend. Satisfied about returning the baby to his mother, Bean starts to drive home, unaware that the Doberman, having escaped from the ticket booth, has sneaked into the back of his Mini after Bean squeaked the toy. As he drives off, Bean squeaks the toy once more and the dog barks, scaring Bean.

Cast[]

• Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean
• as the baby's mother
• as the bumper car's attendant
• Nick Scott as the man in booth
• as the irritated mother
• as the coin pusher kid
• Matthew Ashforde as the young man with candy apple
• Robin Driscoll as the man buying ride tokens
• as girl (unknown)
• as the baby
• as girl (unknown)

Production[]

The entire episode was filmed on location at Clarence Pier, Southsea.^[3] This is one of only two episodes to be filmed entirely on location with one storyline and the last episode to be directed by Paul Weiland. The other episode-length story, Mr. Bean in Room 426, was also filmed in Southsea. This is also the last episode in the series to be shot on 35mm film.

A clip of the scene where Mr. Bean puts the balloons on the pram was shown in an episode of MythBusters, in which it was tested whether a large number of balloons could indeed lift a small child into the sky. It was proven to be plausible, although an impracticably large number^[quantify] of balloons were needed for it to actually work.

Casting[]

Matthew Ashforde who played the hotel porter in Mr. Bean in Room 426, returned as the young man with toffee apple.

Music[]

A cover of Shakin' All Over performed by The Guess Who is featured in the episode,^[4] making it the only episode to feature licensed music.

References[]

External links[]

• "Mind the Baby, Mr. Bean" at IMDb