The Curse of Mr. Bean

"The Curse of Mr. Bean" is the third episode of the British television series Mr. Bean, produced by Tiger Television for Thames Television. It was first broadcast on ITV on 30 December 1990^[1] and was watched by 13.8 million viewers during its original transmission. It won the 1991 International Emmy Award for Outstanding Popular Arts Programme.

Plot[]

Act 1: The Swimming Pool[]

Bean visits a local indoor swimming pool and parks his Mini in the nearby car park. Once inside and changed, he attempts to go on a children's slide, only for a lifeguard to order him off. Bean soon spots the diving boards and decides to try out the highest one, but he becomes frightened when he realizes how high up he is and tries to back out, only to find two boys waiting for their turn. He is too scared to dive, so he attempts to climb off the edge of the board. When Bean is hanging off by one hand, one of the boys goes and stomps on his hand, causing him to fall into the pool. Upon surfacing, Bean sees that his swimsuit has come off. A little girl fishes it out with her snorkel and takes it with her, leaving him stranded there naked. When the lifeguard orders everyone out, Bean waits until everyone has left and stealthily tries to get back to the changing rooms, only to encounter a group of female swimmers who scream and run away.^[2]

After drying and changing back into his clothes, Bean prepares to leave the car park, only to find that he must pay £16 in order to raise the barrier over the exit. Not wanting to pay, he decides to leave through the entrance. Bean pushes a rubbish bin into the entrance to trick the ticket machine into issuing a ticket to open the gate and he drives his Mini out, but just as he moves the bin out of the way, a car drives in and forces him to reverse back into the car park. Bean suddenly spots the blue Reliant about to enter the car park. As the driver takes a ticket from the machine and opens the barrier, Bean drives his Mini at full speed towards the Reliant, forcing it out of his way and causing it to topple over.

Act 2: Lunch in the Park[]

Heading for the park for lunch, Bean greets a man who is also having lunch while sitting on a bench. Spotting him having a sandwich, Bean sets about making his own using ingredients and tools he stuffed into his coat. He cuts two slices of bread from a loaf with scissors, spreads butter on them with his credit card, washes lettuce under a drinking fountain's water before using his sock to spin it dry, kills two sardines he takes out of a jar and then crushes peppercorns folded into a handkerchief using his shoe. After making his sandwich, Bean notices the man sipping some tea, and prepares to make his own using a hot water bottle, putting a teabag into it while placing the bottle's stopper in his ear. He then proceeds to suck up milk from a baby bottle and spit it into the water in the hot water bottle, before sloshing it together. As he prepares to have his lunch, he ties his handkerchief around his neck, opting to use it as a napkin, only for the pepper traces on it to cause him to sneeze, making him drop his sandwich onto the ground and spray his tea all over himself, ruining his own lunch. The man, witnessing this, offers Bean the other half of his pre-packed sandwich as replacement, much to Bean's gratitude as the cap pops out of his ear.

Act 3: The Horror Film[]

Driving to meet up with his girlfriend Irma Gobb at the cinema, Bean is temporarily stopped at the intersection by a set of traffic lights, but upon seeing a cyclist push his bike manually, he opts to do the same with his Mini and push it round to the road he wants to take, before driving off. Arriving at the cinema, Bean prepares to watch a horror film which appears to be titled A Nightmare (the film poster shown is that of A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, depicting Freddy Krueger, with the camera placed to cut off the last words) with Irma, providing them with popcorn – a large tub for himself along with a hidden drink in his top, and a small tub for Irma, stealing some from her tub but scolding her when she tries to do the same. Before the film begins, Bean teases her by scaring her with silly practical jokes. However, as the film begins, he soon finds himself being scared witless with the various scenes frightening him to the point he tries to avoid watching it, even trying to force Irma to leave with him only to be forced to remain in his seat. Bean then tries to cover his head with his sweater, causing Irma to scream when she thinks his head has been cut off. Finally, Bean manages to find a solution by using some popcorn as earplugs, and using the popcorn tub to cover his eyes from the film. This works, and he manages to avoid the remaining scenes. As everyone begins to leave as the film ends, Irma lets Bean know they are leaving to which he removes the tub and eats the popcorn earplugs, before trying to tease another of the cinema's customers. The episode ends with Bean failing to notice that she put her coat over her like a cape, causing the pair to scream in fright when Bean finds her coat arm empty, ending the episode.

Cast[]

• Rowan Atkinson − Mr. Bean
• Angus Deayton – pool attendant; man on the park bench
• Matilda Ziegler – Irma Gobb (The Girlfriend)

Production notes[]

The swimming pool sequence was filmed entirely at the Hayes Pool and Fitness Centre, rebuilt and renamed in 2010. ^[3][4][5][6] with the car park sequences at the Heathrow Bowling car park and the short traffic lights scene in Feltham (close to the Hayes pool centre). This was the last episode to be produced with an OB unit. Studio sequences were recorded before a live audience at Thames Television's Teddington Studios. This also marked the first appearance of Bean's 1977 Leyland Mini 1000.

The Curse of Mr Bean went onto win the 1991 International Emmy Award for Outstanding Popular Arts Programme.^[7][8]

Scenes from this episode later inspired the storylines of episodes from Mr. Bean: The Animated Series:

• The car park sequence in Act 1 inspired the episodes No Parking and Car Wars.
• Act 3 inspired the episode Scaredy Bean.

Censorship[]

The scene from Act 1 where Mr. Bean accidentally exposes himself to a group of female swimmers was cut on broadcasts on the Philippine network ABS-CBN, Nickelodeon UK and Disney Channel.

References[]

External links[]

• "The Curse of Mr. Bean" at IMDb