The Trouble with Mr. Bean

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"The Trouble with Mr. Bean" is the fifth episode of the British television series Mr. Bean, produced by Tiger Television for Thames Television. It was first broadcast on ITV on 1 January 1992 and watched by 18.7 million viewers on its original broadcast, making it the highest-rated episode in the series.^[1][2]

Plot[]

Act 1: The Dentist[]

Mr. Bean's alarms go off at 8:00 am, but he continues to lie in his bed while ignoring the chimes of his grandfather clock, dunking a battery-powered alarm clock into a nearby glass of water and stopping a hose spraying hot water from his teasmade by plugging it with the big toe on his right foot.^[3] Eventually, Bean gets up 50 minutes later, conducts some light exercise, brings out his clothes and then has difficulty shaving when his electric razor catches his nasal hairs. Upon noticing a reminder that he has a dental appointment, he suddenly realises that he is running late and proceeds to grab his clothes, his shoes, his toothbrush and toothpaste and heads for his Mini, coming back suddenly to ensure his cuddly toy, Teddy, is tucked in bed. Rushing for the appointment, Bean proceeds to get dressed while driving, using a brick on the accelerator for some of the journey alongside his feet for the steering before eventually brushing his teeth, using the car's screenwash to rinse his mouth out before spitting it out, the contents landing on the buttocks of a local builder, who initially mistakes it for bird droppings.

Arriving at the dental surgery of Mr. A. M. Peggit in the nick of time, Bean parks out front, forcing the blue Reliant out of the only parking space. A traffic warden then appears, prepares to ticket the Reliant and makes Bean notice that a part of his pyjamas is sticking out of his trousers, forcing him to remove it and toss it in his car window. Once inside the waiting room, he can't find anything good to read other than a Batman comic book in the hands of a young boy who refuses to share the book. Bean tricks the boy's mother into thinking he has wet himself by stealthily pouring water from a vase onto his lap in order to get the comic – only to find he has no time to read it as the dentist is now ready to see him. Inside with Mr. Peggit, Bean causes mayhem behind the dentist's back, adjusting the dental chair to unusual positions and messing about with some of the equipment. Eventually, he accidentally injects the dentist's leg with a needle containing a dose of anaesthetic, causing him to fall over and then pull down an X-ray blocker, knocking him out. Feeling inconvenienced by this, Bean decides to do what the dentist was planning to do – put a filling into his tooth. Although he manages to do this, he soon finds that the holder containing the dental map of his teeth can flip vertically and horizontally thus leaving him to drill each tooth and put filling on all of them, effectively causing them to be stuck together. Fortunately, Bean gets a fright when Mr. Peggit wakes up and this is enough to free his jaws. Satisfied with his own work, he leaves the dentist to enjoy the rest of the day.

Act 2: The Picnic[]

Following his dental appointment, Bean drives to the public park to have a picnic. The car park is full except for a gap between two cars only just wide enough for his Mini yet with no room to open the door, so he gets out and pushes his car into the gap. However, much to his annoyance, a car next to his car drives off. While passing by a boating lake, he spots a young boy having difficulty with his remote controlled boat. Offering to help, he opens up the controller and tweaks the circuitry inside, fixing the problem. Unbeknown to both Bean and the boy, the controller also takes control of an elderly man's electric wheelchair just behind them, which goes wherever the remote control boat goes. After hogging the controller for some time, Bean hands it back to the boy and leaves just as the now empty wheelchair approaches in behind him, pushing the boy into the lake (off-screen) just as Bean finds a nice spot. He soon begins setting up his picnic which consists of a large blanket, a portable transistor radio, a cake stand, a plate, a bottle of orange juice, a small chair, a book and a nice iced cupcake complete with a cherry on top. Unbeknown to him, a car thief breaks into his Mini and hotwires it, only to find the steering wheel is missing; Bean had removed it and had it with him in his picnic basket.

As Bean prepares to read his book and eat his cake, a wasp suddenly buzzes around his spot and refuses to leave him alone, irritating him. He soon attempts to deal with it as he goes after his cake, swatting at it, jousting with it, chasing it around and even trying to drown it in his bottle of juice. Bean finally manages to kill it by tricking it into landing on the pages of his book and then quickly closing the book. Satisfied, he soon resumes what he was doing only to find an entire swarm of wasps coming for him, forcing him to abandon his picnic site as the end credits roll. Unable to lose them, Bean tosses his cake into a nearby car unaware that the car thief is now in it, who soon finds himself being targeted by the wasps. During this, the wheelchair we saw earlier stops by the car as the episode concludes.

Cast[]

• Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean
• Richard Wilson as Mr. A. M. Peggit, the dentist
• Caroline Quentin as the traffic warden
• as the schoolboy
• as the schoolboy's mother
• as the boy in the park
• as the man in a wheelchair
• as the car thief
• as the dental nurse

Production[]

Location scenes for this episode were shot on 35mm in Battersea Park, Kingston and Teddington, close to the Thames TV studios where studio sequences were recorded before a live audience.

An extended upbeat remix of the choral theme was used for the driving sequence in Act 1.

A number of inspired scenes and stories in Mr. Bean: The Animated Series:

• The scene at the dentist inspired the story for the episode called "Toothache"
• The scene between Mr. Bean and the wasp inspired a similar event for the episode "Artful Bean".
• The scene in which Mr. Bean got his shaver stuck on his nasal hair was reused for the episode "Wanted".
• The scene in which Mr. Bean stopped his coffeemaker waking him by plugging up the hose attached to it that sprayed hot water onto his feet was adapted as part of a scene in clock "Birthday Bear"

A diagram of the clock and hose invention in this episode, also featured in the book Mr Bean's Diary, released in 1993.

The Batman Comic held by the boy in Act 1 is Batman Volume 1, Issue 463.

References[]

External links[]

• "The Trouble with Mr. Bean" at IMDb