The Curse of Mr. Bean

"The Curse of Mr. Bean" is the third episode of the television series Mr. Bean that originally aired on ITV on 30 December 1990. ^[3]

Plot

Act 1

Bean goes to a public swimming pool, where he uses a manual arm to get his ticket at the car park. Once in the pool, Bean wants to go down the kiddie slide, but after the lifeguard (Angus Deayton) refuses to let him, Bean tries out the super-high diving board instead. Frightened by the height, Bean makes a few cowardly attempts to jump, but chickens out, and finds himself attempting to climb off the edge. One of two impatient boys eventually pushes him off by stamping on his hand. Upon landing, Bean loses his swimming trunks and is unable to retrieve them as a small girl fishes them out of the pool with a snorkel. A naked Bean tries to get back to the changing room unseen just as everyone is told to leave the pool and almost succeeds, but the lifeguard who is a pretty girl appears near the change room. Bean hides behind a corner, but as he is doing this, a group of female swimmers appear behind him. They scream at the sight of his nude body runs off, while Bean runs in the opposite direction.

Act 2

Bean refuses to pay the ridiculously high parking price of £16.00 at the swimming pool car park, and tries to leave through the entrance by wheeling a refuse container in front of the entrance to trick the machine into issuing a ticket and opening the barrier. He succeeds and drives his car past the barrier and into the entrance lane. Just as he moves the container back, a black Mercedes arrives and he is forced to reverse back into the car park. He eventually escapes by waiting for another car to enter the car park and lift the barrier, and then driving full speed at the entrance lane, driving out of it and knocking the other car out of the way. The victim turns out to be the Reliant and it topples over, yet again.

Act 3

Bean goes to the park for lunch, and makes himself a sandwich in a ridiculous way, using ingredients and tools he has stashed with him in his coat. He is watched with increasing alarm and disbelief by a man who sits next to him (Angus Deayton, who also played the swimming pool lifeguard in Act 1). He cuts the bread with scissors, spreads the butter with his credit card (his "flexible friend"), washes the lettuce in a drinking water fountain and uses his sock to dry it, pretends to kill two dead fish he has stored in a jar, and crushes the peppercorns with his shoe. He even makes tea in a hot water bottle, using his mouth to transfer milk from a baby bottle to the hot water bottle and placing the cap in his ear. Eventually, however, the pepper makes him sneeze and he drops the sandwich and causes his tea to shoot out of the bottle. The man next to him offers Bean half of his own pre-packed sandwich, which Bean gratefully accepts.

Act 4

In this brief act, when Bean approaches a left turn at an intersection, he has to stop at a red light. He then sees a cyclist, also doing a left turn through the intersection, dismounting from his bike and pushing it over the control line of the still-red traffic lights. Bean gets out of his car and pushes it across the intersection too, just like the cyclist did.

Act 5

Bean goes to see a short horror film with his girlfriend Irma Gobb. He buys himself a huge popcorn tub, and her a small one, even stealing from hers but slapping her hand when she tries to do the same. He also hides a juice can for himself under his sweater and takes a sip; before the film, he teases her and scares her, spills popcorn and interrupts other people there, but ironically, he then gets scared witless himself by the actual feature and tries to avoid watching it by any means necessary (including pulling his sweater over his head—causing a huge shriek from Irma when his head has apparently disappeared—and using popcorn as earplugs). Finally, Bean empties out his popcorn and places the bucket on his head; this ends up working as the movie delivers one last scare to the audience. As everyone leaves, Bean eats his popcorn earplugs before interrupting another person there, and as the couple are about to leave, Irma puts her coat over her body and Bean shakes one of her coat's sleeves, under the impression that her hands have been amputated, scaring her.

Continuity

The Reliant Regal returns in this episode. Bean charges towards the entrance barrier when the driver of the Supervan takes a ticket and then topples over.

This episode introduces the character Irma Gobb (Matilda Ziegler), Bean's neglected girlfriend. The episode also includes the first appearance of Mr. Bean's green Mini.

Production

The shot in which Mr Bean's car begins accelerating towards the car park entrance lane once the barrier is opened is a reference to the movie Christine; this is one of three references to horror movies in the episode. The horror movie that Mr Bean goes to see appears to be called A Nightmare, but the poster shown is obviously for A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child with the camera placed to cut off the last three words – although a picture of Freddy Krueger is shown, which takes 3 minutes; however, the implied events in the film do not match any of the Elm Street films - it's likely he saw a different film without any mention of the title. There is also a reference to Evil Dead II, when Mr. Bean scares Irma by pretending to use a chainsaw to cut off his hand.

The swimming pool episode was filmed in "Hayes Pool and Fitness Centre" the centre is currently abandoned as seen in a Flickr Photo album ^[4]

The car park sequence was filmed at the Heathrow Airport Bowl car park. Mr Bean walks out of the car park into a swimming pool that is actually six miles away in central Hayes. The intersection scene was filmed in Feltham, about a mile down the road from where the pool scene was filmed. The pool closed down in May 2010 and has become derelict. ^[5][6][7]

This episode and The Return of Mr. Bean are the only episodes to have the black background where Mr. Bean falls from the sky in the intro; however, this episode and Mr. Bean Rides Again both show Bean getting sucked back into the sky at the end. Both episodes were directed and produced by John Howard Davies.

Censors

The very end of Act 1 where Mr Bean "exposes" himself to the women swimmers before they run into the changing room is cut from some TV editions, including the Philippine network ABS-CBN, Nickelodeon UK and Disney Channel.

Broadcast and reception

13.8 million viewers watched this episode on the original transmission.

Awards and legacy

Following its broadcast in the United States, this episode was awarded the International Emmy Award for Outstanding Popular Arts Programme. ^[1][2]

Act 5 inspires one episode of Mr. Bean, The Animated Series called "Scaredy Bean", while the parking scenes from Act 1 was a direct opposite from the episode "No Parking".

References

External links

• "The Curse of Mr. Bean" at the Internet Movie Database