Back to School Mr. Bean

"Back to School Mr. Bean" is the eleventh episode of the television series Mr. Bean that first aired on ITV on 26 October 1994. It was produced by Tiger Aspect Productions.^[1] The episode follows Mr. Bean attending a school open day.

Plot

Act 1

Unable to park his car, Bean spots a similar-looking Mini (albeit with missing wing mirrors) and substitutes the cars. Then two Army Cadets spot him pushing his car and help him. While they push the car Bean slowly closes the door and runs behind a wall and makes a humorous sound. Then he confuses a troop of Army Cadets, while the commandant is gone for a while, by coughing and causing them to respond by standing in unusual ceremonial stances, and is confronted by the angry commandant when he returns.

He then gets in another man's (played by Christopher Driscoll) way, messes up a stamp album, distracts and frightens a calligrapher, and gets paper stuck to his body after using a Van de Graaff generator. When a weaving lady takes the offending piece of paper, the static electricity causes her skirt to rise up and cover her upper body, revealing her legs and her white panties. Bean promptly exits the scene while other people try to pull down the skirt.

Act 2

In the chemistry laboratory, Bean experiments with several chemicals and makes an unstable chemical reaction, eventually causing a violent explosion, with blue smoke emerging from the laboratory. Bean manages to escape in time, but a young boy (played by Sam Driscoll) is not so fortunate and is later seen covered head to toe in a blue chemical powder.

Act 3

In a still-life art class, Bean is first made to draw a bowl of fruits. A moment later, the bowl of fruit is replaced with a female nude model (Cindy Milo); he doesn't realise this immediately, but then realises he has drawn the breasts of the model. Bean is so appalled at realising what he was drawing was a woman, he is reluctant to draw any further, despite the French art teacher's (Suzanne Bertish) attempts to persuade him.

While the teacher is tending to somebody else, Bean goes over to the potter's wheel and makes some clay pots; while he is doing it, the boy covered in blue chemical powder and his teacher arrive inside the room to find the person responsible for the laboratory explosion. Unable to find him, and having just noticed the nude model, they walk out of the classroom. After Bean finishes making clay pots, he puts them on the model's breasts, allowing him to draw her without embarrassment. The teacher confronts Bean for drawing the wrong object again, suddenly realising that the woman's chest is covered in a clay bra. After that, Bean finishes his work and walks out of the class.

Act 4

Later, at a judo lesson, a frightened Bean is reluctant to allow himself to be thrown, but ultimately manages to confuse his teacher (David Schneider) by running behind him during the bowing process and roll him up in a mat.

After the class, when Bean has just changed back into his regular clothes, he finds that he has swapped trousers with someone else (Christopher Ryan) and goes on a long search for his own. In the gentlemen's toilets, he spots them, cleverly seeing his name on the label while the wearer is sitting on the toilet. Bean distracts the man, frantically grabs him by the legs and forces the trousers off him, as well as his underwear, which he throws back to the man—though it ends up falling down the toilet.

Act 5

Just as Mr Bean exits the school, there is an announcement over the loudspeaker saying that there will be a demonstration shortly. Mr Bean walks over to where he parked his car at the beginning of the day, but soon realises it is not where he parked it. After looking, he sees his car in the middle of the car park, with a lot of people watching it from behind. Unbothered by this, Bean makes for his car, but on the way, he is distracted by a woman's cake stall set up near his car.

He walks over to the stall and buys a cupcake, unaware that a giant Chieftain tank has just appeared on the car park and that the crushing sound he hears is his own car being crushed. After the tank leaves, Bean turns around, does a double take, drops his cake on the ground, and walks over to his Mini slowly with a sad look on his face. As the credits roll, Bean examines the destroyed Mini and finds that the padlock he uses to lock his car was left intact and unharmed. Seemingly content with this, he smiles and walks off.

Continuity

During The Best Bits of Mr. Bean, Bean finds the padlock and bolt he salvaged from his crushed car in his loft. In the episodes, an identical Mini appears complete with padlock, bolt and the original registration plate (SLW 287R).

One of only two episodes since Teddy's introduction in The Trouble with Mr. Bean where Teddy did not appear at all in the episode (the other being "Mind the Baby, Mr. Bean").

Production

The majority of the episode was filmed at an actual school - Waldergrave School For Girls, Twickenham, Middlesex. The studio scenes were recorded at nearby Teddington Studios, where the majority of Mr. Bean episodes were also produced.

Censors

Some portions were cut for the broadcasts on the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, namely the end of Act 1, when the lady's skirt reveals her legs and panties and up shots involving the nude model in the art class.

Legacy

The art class scene in Act 2 inspires one short on the animated version of Mr. Bean called "Artful Bean", while one part of Act 1 where Mr. Bean tried to use the Van de Graaff generator is also seen in the short "Gadget Kid". The Mini identical to Mr. Bean's possibly inspired the animated episode "Double Trouble".

References

External links

• "Back to School Mr. Bean" at the Internet Movie Database