Mr. Bean (animated TV series)

Mr. Bean
Opening title card of the original series.
Genre	Comedy
Based on	Mr. Bean, by Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson
Voices of	Rowan Atkinson Sally Grace Matilda Ziegler Sophie-Louise Dann Jon Glover Rupert Degas Gary Martin Lorelei King
Composer(s)	Howard Goodall
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	4
No. of episodes	104 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Rowan Atkinson Katherine Senior Peter Bennett-Jones (Season 1–3) Christopher Skala (Season 4)
Producer(s)	Claudia Lloyd (Season 1–3) Tom Beattie (Season 4)
Editor(s)	Mark Edwards (Season 1–3) Thomas Ernst (Season 1–3) Graham Silcock (Season 4) Luke Robinson (Season 4)
Running time	11–12 minutes
Production company(s)	Tiger Aspect Productions Varga Holdings[1] (Season 1–3) Richard Purdum Productions (Season 1–3)
Distributor	FremantleMedia Enterprises (2002–2004) Endemol Shine Worldwide Distribution (2015–present)
Release
Original network	ITV CITV
Picture format	16:9 4:3
Audio format	Dolby Surround
Original release	Original series: 5 January 2002– 6 June 2004 Revived series: 16 February 2015 – 10 March 2016
Chronology
Related shows	Mr. Bean
External links
Website	mrbeancartoon.tv

Mr. Bean, also known as Mr. Bean: The Animated Series, is an animated television sitcom produced by Tiger Aspect Productions and, only for its first three seasons, by Richard Purdum Productions and Varga Holdings. It is based on the British live-action series of the same name, and the characters included Mr. Bean, Irma Gobb, Teddy, and the Reliant Supervan's mysterious driver, with the new addition of Mrs. Wicket, Bean's landlady, and her evil cat Scrapper. In February 2001, the series was officially announced, with it premièring shortly afterwards.^[2]

The series again featured little actual dialogue, with most being either little sound bites or mumbling, mild slapstick, with occasional sexually suggestive moments. Rowan Atkinson provided the voice for Bean; additionally, all of the animated Bean actions are taken from Atkinson himself. Other characters' voices are provided by Matilda Ziegler, Sally Grace, Jon Glover, Gary Martin, Rupert Degas, Lorelei King and Sophie-Louise Dann.

Despite the series' actual title being simply Mr. Bean, some broadcasters referred to this series as Mr. Bean: plus a subtitle for differentiating from the original live-action series. Disney Channel refers to this series as "Mr. Bean - The Animated Series" and the original live-action series is listed as "Mr. Bean - Live Action Series" in their schedule.^[3] The German version, aired on Super RTL, is titled "Mr. Bean - Die Cartoon-Serie".^[4]

In January 2014, ITV announced a revival of the animated series, with Rowan Atkinson returning as Mr. Bean, along with other cast members reprising their roles. The new series now features 52 new episodes; the new episodes began airing from February 16, 2015 to March 10, 2016 on CITV.^[5] The revival of the series now contains more actual dialogue than in the original series, which mostly featured little sound effects.

Main Characters

• Mr. Bean (voiced by Rowan Atkinson) – the title character who serves as the protagonist of the series. He wants every environment around him to be clean and out of trouble.
• Teddy – Mr Bean's lifelong best friend. Mr. Bean often pretends Teddy is alive.
• Mrs. Julia Wicket (voiced by Sally Grace) – Mr. Bean's landlady, an old woman who occasionally serves as the antagonist. She owns a one-eyed cat named Scrapper. She gets angry at Bean quite easily: however, they occasionally have a good relationship.
• Irma Gobb (voiced by Matilda Ziegler) – Mr. Bean's girlfriend.
• Lottie – Irma's teddy bear. She looks almost identical to Mr. Bean's Teddy, except she has eyelashes, a red bow and a red skirt. She is sometimes portrayed as Teddy's girlfriend, but Bean dislikes this relationship.
• The Burglars – a duo of thieves, one stocky and the other small, who commit crimes while in various disguises.
• The Bruisers – Mr. Bean's neighbours, a working-class family made up of a father, mother and three children, with a dog named Tutati.

Episodes

The programme originally lasted for three series, which contained a total of 52 episodes. The first two series in 2002 to 2003 were broadcast in a prime time Saturday night slot on ITV, and featured two back to back episodes in a half hour segment. However, the third series in 2004 was broadcast daily on CITV, and the series was run as twenty single episodes, rather than back to back segments. The final episode of the third series was titled "Double Trouble", and it was aired on 2 June 2004.

In January 2014, CITV announced that a new animated series would be made, with Rowan Atkinson once again providing his voice for the role. 52 new episodes, each lasting twelve minutes were recorded during 2014, and began airing on 16 February 2015 on CITV.

DVD releases

The animated version has been re-released on DVD by A&E Home Video in Region 1 (actually are Region Free), and Universal Pictures in Regions 2 and 4. In the United States, all 52 episodes were released on six volumes. However, in the United Kingdom and Australia, the six volumes only contained 47 of the 52 episodes, with the other five episodes appearing each as extras on the DVD releases of the live action series.

The reason for this is that when the episodes were classified by the BBFC in the United Kingdom, they were given a PG certificate rather than a U certificate. It was decided that the DVDs of the animated series should have a U certificate so the five PG episodes were not included.

Region 1

Region 2

Region 4

Season 2 Volume 3 was an exclusive for Big W, which is no longer available.

Merchandising

Two Mr Bean games based on the animated series have been released: Mr Bean – Around the World^[6] and Mr. Bean: Flying Teddy|Mr Bean - Flying Teddy. Both are available globally on iOS, Android and Amazon mobile devices.

References

External links

• Official website
• Mr. Bean: The Animated Series on IMDb
• Mr Bean: The Animated Series at TV.com