(audience laughing) (playful music) (audience laughing) (Mr. Bean groaning) - [Mr. Bean] Ole!

(audience laughing) Ooh!

(body thumps) (audience clapping) ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ - Mr. Bean was just who I was.

(Mr. Bean gasps) ♪ Just watch me ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ I still find him funny and I think I can still perform him, you know, dye my hair, and I'm off.

(audience laughing) - I do think Rowan is a genius.

- They were the university boys, and I was the secondary school kid, and I rough it up a bit.

♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ - I had the seventh most recognizable face in the world.

♪ Just watch me now, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Just watch me now, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ I got something for ya ♪ ♪ A little more for ya ♪ ♪ You won't believe your eyes ♪ - He's also, in my opinion, the greatest clown of our lifetime.

- Oh.

(muttering and chuckling) ♪ Just watch me now, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ (sign thumps) (mysterious music) (body thuds) - [Narrator] At 8:00 pm on New Year's Day, ITV broadcast a pilot for a new comedy sketch show starring Rowan Atkinson, simply entitled "Mr.

Bean."

- ITV were looking for one half-hour show to fill this one gap in the schedule, and ours was the only one that seemed to be about.

(cheerful music) And it was just a complete fluke, really, that the first time it was shown was at eight o'clock immediately after "Coronation Street."

It was put in this prime spot.

(cheerful music) (audience laughing) - When it was presented to the British public, it was so mainstream that it never occurred to people that what they were watching was the sort of unique bit of genius by an irreplaceable comedian.

They just thought, "Oh, he has a big, popular show."

- [Narrator] This first episode was made up of three sketches.

- [Rowan] Church sketch was the first "Mr. Bean" sketch with Richard Briers playing the guy that, unfortunately for him, I'm next to.

♪ Peril on the sea ♪ - Just watching a guy trying to stay awake, and he's failing.

(Mr. Bean gasps) (audience laughing) And it's fun just to watch it in real time.

(audience laughing) (audience laughing) The longer it takes for him to slowly fall asleep in his own lap, it becomes funnier.

- [Minister] And let into our house.

(audience laughing) - The great joy of these was the rehearsal of them, and they didn't take very long.

We had an idea, it seemed rich, and we would just sit in a room and say, "Well what's the next thing that could happen with the resources that we've got?"

(Minister speaking faintly) (audience laughing) So we've got a hymn book.

He could have something in the pockets of his jacket.

(audience laughing) There'll be a hymn.

♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ (Mr. Bean muttering) - And we just worked it out communally, probably church took, you know, an hour.

♪ Hallelujah ♪ - Rowan has this tremendous ability, once he's got something that's funny, never to forget it.

(upbeat music) - You know, really lucky to have met Richard all those years ago when we were students, really lucky.

- Well, Rowan and I turned up at a sketch writing club in Oxford, and I thought that Rowan was a stuffed toy 'cause he didn't say anything at all for the first three meetings.

And then we were asked to submit some material and he stood up and did two sketches, and I thought, "Oh no, he's a genius.

That's awkward."

- I actually met Rowan in my first hour at university.

I'd heard there might be like a comedy review group, so I went to the desk and said, "Look, I do music and I'd love to maybe help out."

And the guy at the desk was Rowan.

So he said, "Well, okay, someone will come and see you."

And Richard came around and said, "Well, we're doing a show in three weeks.

Do you wanna do the music?"

So I said, "Yes."

- It really was a group of friends laughing at Rowan, you know, pulling faces.

(upbeat music) (audience laughing) - We called it a one-man show.

That'll be Richard, myself, and Rowan, which is three people.

It started to be more and more about Rowan really because everything he did, an audience would just hang on what he was doing.

- I mean, Mr. Bean was created for theater, for the comedy show that Richard and I used to do.

We started to create these purely visual sketches.

If I had to tell a story entirely visually, I just naturally became this character.

So Mr. Bean was just who I was when denied verbal expression.

I think he's a funny idea, you know?

He's absurd, but he makes me laugh.

- [Narrator] The sketches they created for the theater would become the three sketches in the first episode of "Mr.

Bean."

- It hadn't occurred to us that there was a universal character.

One was a kind of bloke who goes to church a lot, one was some awkward guy with some swimming trunks, the other one was a younger guy who was cheating in an exam.

When we thought let's do this TV show with, whatever it was, three of them in it, we thought, oh, we better wear the same costume.

- [Student] Yeah, he can get it himself.

He can get on, right?

- What was usually funny was just the process of how he gets out of a difficult situation or how he gets into a difficult situation.

(audience laughing) - Done your revision?

- Oh, yes.

(audience laughing) I've concentrated on trigonometry.

- I've done calculus mainly.

- Oh?

I believe they concentrated on calculus last year.

- Oh dear.

(Mr. Bean snickers) - Quiet ladies and gentlemen, please.

The exam starts now.

(paper rustling) - Bodily expression, particularly with Mr. Bean, is so very, very important.

It's sort of screaming at you, you know?

There may be no words, but you are being shouted at, I think, very loudly by the bodily expression.

(audience laughing) (audience laughing) The word compelling is quite good because I think that's what draws you into a lot of "Mr. Bean" sketches.

(audience laughing) - You only had to have the starting point of the idea.

He gets locked out of his room or he's going to a swimming pool or something like that, and then you could be pretty confident that we would be able to make it work.

- Would those who answered the green calculus papers please put them in the green box, and those who answered the white trigonometry papers, please put them in the white box.

(paper rustling) (Mr. Bean muttering) (audience laughing) (paper rustling) - What I've always done on the "Mr.

Beans" is, as it were, I've done the charcoal outline, and then Rowan ads all the color and the texture and I laugh at him while he's doing it.

- [Professor] I said stop writing.

(audience laughing) Will you stop writing?

(alarm clock ringing) (sign whooshes) (sign pounds) (audience laughing) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] It is 30 years since the first "Mr. Bean" was shown on British television, and it became an instant hit.

(upbeat music) Between 1990 and 1995, the team went on to produce 14 episodes in total.

- I didn't know until this moment there were only 14.

I thought there were probably 114, and that Rowan had been coining in for years and years, making this never-ending flow of "Mr.

Beans."

(audience laughing) - We did the other 14 episodes in dribs and drabs.

We didn't make 14 at once.

We made two, and then we made three more, and then we made one more, and then we made four more, and eventually we got to this rather paltry sum of 14.

(audience laughing) They were always given sort of prime spot and earned their keep there, and suddenly, you know, people realized that visual comedy could actually hold a large audience.

(sign pounds) (audience laughing) - [Narrator] After the overnight success of episode one, the team was in need of new material, and comedy writer Robin Driscoll was hired.

(ethereal singing) - In your own time, sir, no rush.

- [Narrator] He would also feature in various sketches as a straight man to Rowan.

- I would say in the story of Mr. Bean, its Rowan, Robin, and then possibly me.

(audience laughing) I always think, in a way, Rowan and I did the obvious ones.

We got the low-hanging fruit, and what was brilliant about Robin is that he's just kept, as it were, squeezing the lemon, finding new things, finding different ways, taking a little thread, be it to do with a car or with the teddy or anything like that.

- My agent rang, said that they were gonna commission a bunch of writers just to send in some scripts to see if any of us could write for the show, and I just wrote a stack like that.

Richard and Rowan called me in and said, "We'd love you to join us."

- [Mr. Bean] Oh!

(audience laughing) - They were the university boys, the Oxford boys, and I was the secondary school kid.

Yeah, I was the last on the team, you know, rough it up a bit.

(chuckles) (dramatic orchestral music) One of the sketches was one that I'd actually submitted in trying to get the job, and it was being sat in an armchair on top of the Mini, and I just thought that costs much, they'll never do that.

(engine whirring) (dramatic orchestral music) (audience laughing) And I watched the other day and I thought, "Rowan's quite good in it, really."

(audience laughing) (suspenseful dramatic music) - A little lap belt, I think, is holding me in, I think.

(dramatic music) That is the huge difference between filming 30 years ago and filming now.

Basically, we did everything for real and I so preferred that.

(suspenseful dramatic music) (audience laughing) (engine whirring) (audience laughing) I'm sorry to have to tell you that there is a man hidden in the car with a small video screen doing the donkey work, (chuckles) but still, they're stunts.

(engine whirring) (car pounds) (audience laughing) (audience clapping) Even in that sketch, the sound of a Mini disappearing into the back of a removal van into a pile of mattresses.

you know, what is that sound?

And it was mainly, poof.

(Mr. Bean grunts) (Mr. Bean chuckling) I like the little moment when he comes back into his room and he blows some of the feathers out of his mouth.

- You had other members of the crew often, you know, whispering to me ideas.

One of the set hands just came up to me and he just went, (coughs), and then puffed out a load of feathers.

(Mr. Bean coughing) (audience laughing) - I like that, I'd forgotten that joke.

That's rather sweet.

(puffs air) (TV cluttering) (audience laughing) The scripts of purely visual comedy, nonverbal comedy are sort of dull as ditchwater.

You know, they're dull to read and they're dull to deal with, so it's actually much more fun just to have a one-line idea.

(audience laughing) And then to be sort of semi improvising and then Richard would be there very diligently, or Robin, just, you know, writing down what I was doing, and then at least I could remember.

(TV humming) (dramatic music) (audience laughing) (TV humming) (dramatic music) - The simpler it is, the more extraordinary Rowan is.

(audience laughing) (dramatic music) (TV humming) (audience laughing) We set such small boundaries because we were thinking almost in terms of theater rather than in terms of what you can set up with a camera.

(dramatic music) (TV humming) (audience laughing) - I'm a great believer that you've got to sit back, you've got to shoot things wide so you can see as much of the body as you can at any one time.

(TV humming) And you get this feeling that you are trapped in that room with Mr. Bean.

You're being forced to watch him in this very voyeuristic, rather embarrassing way, but it sort of generates a laughter, I think.

I think it does.

(audience laughing) (guns firing) (audience laughing) (audience clapping) Just frame it and look at it and stay there, and let the action play out.

(dramatic music) (audience laughing) - If you want a masterclass in physical comedy, I would recommend that you look at the Queen Mother gag.

- [Reporter] You join us as the royal car winds its way to the front entrance of the Odeon Cinema.

- It's the perfect setup for Mr. Bean, a long line of people about to do something or expectant about something, and then you just kind of stick him in the middle.

(audience laughing) - Yes, the funny thing about this is that it was originally conceived and supposed to be the Queen Mother.

And of course, what happened is, you know, the Queen Mother got older and the Queen got older, and the Queen started to look like the Queen Mother.

And so everyone now assumes it's the Queen that Mr. Bean is meeting, but that was never the intention.

It was supposed to be the Queen Mother.

(audience laughing) - That man on the left there is a very, very handsome younger version of me.

(audience laughing) - I was put into that scene as a last minute thing.

Someone else was gonna do it, and I just, I don't know what happened, but it was a last-minute insertion of Matilda.

(audience laughing) - Clearly, Mr. Bean knows that this is a very formal occasion and you're supposed to behave like an adult and you're supposed to stand in line and wear the right clothing, and he's got all dressed up.

He feels was as though he's done everything he could possibly do to fit in with the conventions of polite society.

(audience laughing) - The expectation and the payoffs that build throughout that scene, I thought was just amazingly clever.

(audience laughing) - I had this idea for the one with the Queen, and I stood in my living room, I put on a suit, and I basically stood still for an hour thinking what might I have?

(audience laughing) (Mr. Bean inhaling) (audience laughing) And then I'd take my seven ideas, this could happen, this could happen, this could happen, into the rehearsal one with Rowan, and then they would turn into, you know, 15.

- The costume department put dental floss inside the lace so that Rowan could actually see it, this thing at the back, and just pull it.

And then when I leant forward to look for the Queen Mother, it just flopped it down.

(audience laughing) I'm on dirty look number seven right now.

(audience laughing) (audience laughing) - (chuckles) That's very silly, his finger sticking out of the trousers, very, very silly.

- Oh yeah, nothing too low.

- I like that with comedy, when you build up to something really very shocking and surprising.

(audience laughing) (heads thud) (audience laughing) (audience clapping) Oh yeah, it wasn't just thrown together, you know?

Yeah, we tried to make it work.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Matilda Ziegler was subsequently cast as Irma Gobb, Mr. Bean's girlfriend, and was the show's only returning character.

- Irma's character, I'm so pleased to say, was actively encouraged to be a bit sort of stroppy.

(audience laughing) (upbeat electronic music) (audience laughing) They were equally self-centered, which is why I thought they came together really well.

(audience laughing) He met his match.

(uplifting music) (audience laughing) (uplifting music) - No!

- Matilda Ziegler has got a fantastic deadpan.

All the life drains from her body, deliberately becoming part of the background, (suspenseful music) (Mr. Bean whimpers) (suspenseful music) except when he goes blank and then it's your turn.

(Irma screaming) (suspenseful music) - [Narrator] The last episode Irma appeared in was "Merry Christmas, Mr.

Bean."

It was watched by 19 million viewers.

(ball thuds) (audience laughing) (ball crunches) - Christmas shopping is going on, and Mr. Bean accidentally gets given a baton to conduct the Salvation Army band that's playing carols.

Now, you could do that one way, which is just chaos, but what we wanted to do was something much more precise.

(brass instruments play note) (brass instruments play notes) (brass instruments play notes) (brass instruments play note) (brass instruments play melody) And the delight, I think, is seeing that work itself out, and the fantastic precision and beauty of his physical comedy.

(brass instruments play song) (brass instrument plays note) - So there were two turkeys.

One of them was absolutely brilliant, but not quite right.

It was smaller.

And then on the day, this thing arrived.

(audience laughing) - I thought of the idea for the turkey on a Christmas Day, (audience laughing) 'cause I was shoving stuff into a turkey, and then I just thought, oh.

(audience laughing) (flashlight thuds) - And just that moment when he rises up into shock.

whoa, I wasn't expecting that!

(audience laughing) (audience clapping) (bell ringing) Mr. Been walking around with the Turkey on his head looks like an alien creature from another place.

There's something, he came from somewhere else.

- Are you all right in there?

- I'm fine, thank you.

(audience laughing) - Christ alive, if someone came down from Mars and saw this, they would destroy the planet, wouldn't they?

(suspenseful music) (Irma screams) The catchphrase of all the rehearsals was will they get it in Egypt?

The idea was that it had to be something that every person in the world would get.

(Irma grunts) (audience laughing) (turkey crashes) (audience laughing) (audience clapping) (lively music) (sign pounds) (upbeat electronic music) (sign pounds) (crowd cheering) - [Narrator] Within three years of the first television show, - Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Bean.

- [Narrator] Mr. Bean had become a global sensation.

- [Mr. Bean] I've never been to Canada before and it's absolutely splendid.

- Some strange survey declared that I had the seventh most recognizable face in the world, and you sort of think, well, that's odd.

- Our friend, Mr. Bean.

(audience laughing) - Sorry, Eric.

(audience laughing) - Globally, I mean, I think we sold I don't how many television markets.

There are 180 or something, we've sold in 180, so he became very, very, very globally famous.

- You know, the internationalist thing means that people certainly can enjoy "Mr. Bean" without speaking any particular language.

(audience cheering) I remember a video signing and there were policemen on horseback dispelling the crowds and there was an extraordinary turnout.

- I remember having this arch of policemen allowing us to get out the back of the building into a car and zoom off, and I thought this is fun, and Rowan getting in the back saying, "I'm hating every minute of this."

(laughs) Because he doesn't hanker after that sort of adulation, whereas I thought it was an absolute riot.

Well, it almost was a riot.

- One of the things I love about "Mr. Bean" and it's success is the strange fact that it's so English and at the same time be so completely international.

(paper rustling) (audience laughing) - It's odd how such an inherently selfish and self-centered person can generate affection in people.

- [Mr. Bean] Hello.

- Oh, hello.

- [Mr. Bean] Come in.

Rupert.

- Hello, Bean.

- Hubert.

- Bean.

- Come in.

- The likability of Mr. Bean I think is one of his charms.

(audience laughing) (audience laughing) (Mr. Bean slurps) (audience laughing) (Mr. Bean chirping) (audience laughing) - I suppose it's the sympathy or the empathy that you have for children, finding it very difficult to contain his excitement.

He just gets it slightly wrong.

(audience laughing) ♪ Oh, when you're laughing ♪ (clock dings) - Ah, happy new year!

(audience laughing) - Oh, that's great.

Doesn't time fly when you're enjoying yourselves?

- Not easy company.

- Good night, thank you so very much.

(festive music) (door thuds) (Mr. Bean sighs) - [Audience] Aw.

- An awful lot of people will say to me, "Wouldn't it be fun to have dinner with Mr.

Bean?"

And you think no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you don't wanna be doing that.

He would ruin your evening.

He's just got that sort of tension between conformity.

- Is everything all right, sir?

- Oh yes.

(audience laughing) - Are you sure?

- Oh yes.

- And non-conformity, which I think actually is inside me a bit.

(violin playing suspenseful music) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) That fight that Bean has between doing what you're supposed to do do and doing what he wants to do, the desire to challenge and to undermine and to be silly, and to not do what the people expect you to do, and that's definitely a big part of me.

(audience laughing) - It's a very interesting juxtaposition, but the more you know him, the more Mr. Bean sort of makes sense because, in a way, there's an element of Rowan, the quite lonely school boy who people didn't talk to existing in a silent world, you know, in that character.

(upbeat music) - It was myself and a friend of mine who used to run a thing called the 6th Form Film Society when we were at school, and this was just an excuse to get a whole lot of, you know, weird and arty films and enjoy them really for ourselves, and if anyone else, you know, wanted to watch them, then fine.

(cheerful music) And I remember getting Jacques Tati in "Monsieur Hulot's Holiday" and being so inspired by it.

(body thumps) - Yeah, Rowan used to bang on about Jacques Tati a bit.

- The comedy that I'd seen had been mostly verbal rather than visual, and it was just a moment of revelation for me.

It just opened up a world that I'd never seen before, really, of a sort of a very particular kind of comedy, which took its time that I think is a feature, actually, of the Mr. Bean live action TV, is that the comedy actually is never in a rush.

- Good morning, do sit down.

(audience laughing) - We have the extremely good Richard Wilson air-playing the dentist.

(audience laughing) (device whirring) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) - When I met Rowan for the first time, quiet farmer's son, you know, studying chemical engineering, that couldn't have been further from this extraordinary outpouring when he just uses all his physical skills to be a great silent comedian.

(audience laughing) (suction thumps) (audience laughing) - I mean, he is very, very physically skilled.

He makes it look easy.

Well, he doesn't, he makes it look difficult for the character, but not for him.

(audience laughing) (soothing orchestral music) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) - And you see how well executed that is.

To get the timing of that right is not easy.

(soothing orchestral music) (Mr. Bean whimpers) - [Dentist] Ah!

(audience laughing) (soothing orchestral music) (Dentist groaning) (audience laughing) (soothing orchestral music) (dentist groaning) (body thumps) - It's all, in a sense, so very predictable and yet so gloriously funny.

(audience laughing) (dramatic orchestral music) - Mr. Bean is in a dentist's chair and he somehow has managed to contrive to render unconscious the dentist that he turned up to see.

Then he's got to do it himself.

You know, he's got to get to the same place, but via a different route, and it involves his own ingenuity.

(device whirring) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) And working out mechanically how the problem could be solved.

(audience laughing) That's my brain at work, I'm afraid.

(dramatic orchestral music) - Ah!

(audience laughing) (dramatic orchestral music) (audience laughing) (dramatic orchestral music) (audience clapping) - I think the truth of the matter is "Mr. Bean" was huge fun to rehearse, quite a lot of fun to perform in the theater, and quite hard to film.

- Excuse us a moment.

(phone ringing) Suzy!

(Mr. Bean sighs) - [Barber] Yeah?

No, no, no, no, no worries at all, yeah?

Yeah, Saturday?

Ha, yeah, yeah.

(bell chimes) - Sorry, look, can I just leave Jamie here with you for a moment?

I mean, I've left my personal shop back there, but just give him a good haircut, will you?

Be good, Jamie.

- The thing you would find surprising about watching Rowan rehearse some of these sketches is how the atmosphere is really about detail.

- Sorry to stop, but I have a feeling that if this happened, that Bean would, what, you know, normal people would say, "Hang on a minute, he'll be back in a second," and I'm third, you know what I mean?

- He will want to do something again and again and again until he is absolutely sure that he's got it right.

- Just popped out for lunch.

(audience laughing) - Me too.

- Oh?

- Nothing like a quick sandwich.

- No, absolutely.

(audience laughing) - When you're actually on the studio floor trying to make the joke work and do what I'm supposed to be good at, which is to perform and make things work, that's when it just gets very, very stressful.

(audience laughing) (audience laughing) - Rowan is a perfectionist.

He's constantly taking in is that lighting right?

Is that chair the right chair?

Is there a draft?

No, I don't think there's a draft, and da-da-da-da, and all that is going on inside him.

- It's part of that perfectionism that means that you never lose a laugh.

So wherever there is a potential funny moment, the audience will see it.

(audience laughing) (can rattles) (audience laughing) - People say, "Oh, oh it's so marvelous 'cause he's a perfectionist, you know?

And I don't regard perfectionism as a particularly admirable quality.

I think it's more a disease than a quality 'cause it's very debilitating, it's very draining.

(audience laughing) (audience laughing) - My flexible friend.

(audience laughing) - I didn't feel the burden to be funny on the "Blackadder," whereas something like Bean, it does tend to come down to me and my performance.

(audience laughing) - You'd definitely get letters now if you did that.

You can't kill fish like that, even if they are rubber.

That probably would've taken about 30 takes.

I mean, he certainly didn't do it first time.

(audience laughing) (audience laughing) - Sometimes I've just got to get to the point when literally I can't be bothered to do any more takes, and maybe, you know, take 18 is better than take five, but usually it isn't.

(audience laughing) (audience laughing) - There's definitely a number of looks that, as a straight man, you have to make sure you don't double up on, so there's a sort of look askance, and the look surprised, and the look disapproving, and they have to kind of, which one should I use here?

Seven A, I'll use condescending.

(Mr. Bean sneezes) (audience laughing) (audience clapping) (lid pops) (audience laughing) (audience clapping) (sign pounds) (toothbrush whirring) (audience laughing) - [Narrator] After five years of continuing success, - Good night.

- [Narrator] "Good night, Mr. Bean" was the last episode to be made for television.

(body thumps) - I felt towards the end of the 14 episodes that we made that I felt as though we'd sort of done it.

You know, not done the character necessarily, but done the TV world.

And of course it was after that that we made the first movie.

- Are you feeling lucky, punk?

(frantic music) (sign pounds) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Seven years after "Mr. Bean" was first shown on TV, "Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie" was released, followed by "Mr. Bean's Holiday."

- [Attendant] You speak very good French.

- Gracias.

- [Narrator] Between them, they took half a billion dollars at the box office.

♪ She call me Mr. Boombastic ♪ ♪ Tell me fantastic ♪ ♪ Touch me on my back ♪ ♪ She says I'm Mr. Ro-, Ro- ♪ - When we made the Bean movie in 1996, we decided to plagiarize ourselves and use the turkey on the head joke again.

(Mr. Bean muttering) And also shooting in the '90s was "Friends," the famous American sitcom, and they stole the joke.

And of course, when it came out in the movie, everyone said, "Oh well, of course they stole that from 'Friends.'"

- I'm absolutely dazzled by the "Friends" thing.

I only saw it the other day.

I literally can't believe what happened there.

Bizarre, bizarre.

- But in the end, you know, you can't steal jokes.

Jokes are there to be stolen or to inspire, to inspire others.

(Mr. Bean muttering) (water splashing) - Hello?

- We made him talk a lot in the first Mr. Bean movie.

You know, we decided that he had to talk a lot in order to tell our story, sort of like finding another aspect to him, and I like the way he talked.

- Oh, Mr. Garrison, yes.

He's just here in the shower with me.

- [Narrator] After the success of the TV shows and films, (Mr. Bean grunting) (box thuds) Mr. Bean made a surprising move to a new audience.

- Ah, phew.

Now, to sign my card.

How hard can it be?

- [Narrator] When in 2002, Rowan became the voice of Mr. Bean for a children's animation series.

(cheerful music) - When it came to contriving an animated series for Mr. Bean, it wasn't conceptually that big a shift.

- Oh, the bargain bucket.

- My relationship with the animation is the single business deal of which I am most proud 'cause Row rang me up and said, you know, "We've got this idea, we should do an animation of Mr.

Bean."

And it was a quick phone call and I remember saying, "I wouldn't if I were you," and I've been receiving checks for it it ever since.

(register beeping) - I find that I can't do the voice, you know, without, you know, doing the face.

You know, the two have to go together.

(liquid burbling) (Mr. Bean burbling) You know, (muttering) you know, that I tend to very quickly go into him.

- That sort of switch has to be switched before he becomes that strange entity.

- Go and move your stupid, just go!

- [Interviewer] So you've never seen him in the booth?

- I've never seen him in the booth.

(playful music) (Mr. Bean gasps) - Oh no!

Teddy!

Oh, good, come on!

(Mr. Bean grunting and whimpering) Oh, Teddy.

- That is hilarious.

That's even worse than I thought.

Poor Row, honestly, I'm glad he's getting paid.

- You know, I think if ever they made a cartoon about the adventures of Baldrick and it was as good as the cartoon of Mr. Bean, I would be quite happy with that.

(sign pounds) (crowd cheering) I think most of us forget quite how gloomy the nation was in the run up to the London Olympics, so when the opening ceremony happened, I think we were all sitting there, go on then, prove something to me.

- The London Symphony Orchestra are going to play "Chariots of Fire."

Now, that's just poetry isn't it, for any Olympian, so, you know, the violins started, it was amazing.

And so you're kind of just waiting for that synthesized bit to come in, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

We saw the finger an arm, and then, (note playing repeatedly) we saw Mr. Bean.

Just genius.

I mean, I just remember the whole stadium erupting, and that was an international stadium.

- My heart almost burst when they cut to Rowan, and in some way, it's symbolizing something about the glorious ness of our nation.

Bosh.

- Beckham, Bean, and Bond in one opening ceremony, brilliant.

(sign pounds) (soft piano music) (fast piano music) - Quite early on, in the first couple of years, we began developing specifically musical sketches.

(lively piano music) We later did a sketch, for example, where the whole stage was full of an invisible drum kit.

(drum beating) (audience laughing) And I suppose the legacy of those sketches ended up, in its perhaps finest moment, at the opening of the Olympic Games in 2012.

- He was never intended to be Mr. Bean particularly.

He was just a guy in an orchestra that Richard and I used to do on stage.

I mean, obviously because it was me, and because I was, you know, trying to be funny without words, and surprisingly, I looked remarkably similar in terms of his body language and his general demeanor to Mr. Bean.

It was never meant to be.

It's just me being silly.

- And yet, when you go on YouTube and an astonishing amount of people have watched it, it says on the bottom, Mr. Bean at the Olympics.

- Even though you're in front of endless billions out there watching on TV, bring it all down to the job that you're doing, which is basically that.

- It wasn't quite perfect when he took a picture of the audience.

(audience cheering) 60,000 people laughing at him, 1.2 billion people enjoying it, and fundamentally, Row's just a bit annoyed about the fact that the flash didn't go off.

(upbeat music) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (tank rumbling) - It was an enlightened invention, you know.

Well done, Rowan and Richard.

(Mr. Bean grunting) - I suppose I always had faith in its longevity as an idea because I thought the idea was broad and simple.

You know, this idea of a childlike figure just doing silly things.

- The fact that it's lasted is not to me much more surprising than the fact that, you know, Buster Keaton has lasted or Charlie Chaplin has lasted.

(audience laughing) So if anything was gonna last of our work, it would probably be Mr. Bean.

(audience laughing) - [Patron] Get off, what are you doing?

- There's a scene in "Four Weddings," which was originally a "Mr. Bean" sketch in my mind.

It's the one where Hugh Grant's in a room and then a couple come in and, you know, do what couples do, and he has to hide in a cupboard.

(door clanks) - Found it.

- You know, Hugh's performance isn't as funny as Rowan's would've been.

(sign pounds) - [Interviewer] And now, future Mr. Bean.

- And I mean, he'd be older, there's no doubt about that.

- Old Bean is what we are now thinking of doing.

He's always had a kind of grumpy selfishness, which might adapt well.

(audience laughing) (audience laughing) - I still like him.

I suppose what I mean is I still find him funny and I think I can still perform him.

(audience laughing) (audience clapping) - Ugh.

(audience laughing) - We've had some meetings and some discussions and some sort of mini rehearsals where we do exactly what we used to do before.

- I hope it happens, and then there'll be another opportunity to see the original Mr. Bean in his original setting.

- You know, dye my hair and, and I'm off.

I think, you know, you must never say never.

(audience laughing) - I mean, it's just been an honor in my life to have, you know, worked with someone who's that, you know, has got that basic brilliance.

(audience clapping) - Yes!

- I think of Rowan as a brother, really.

(melancholy music) - Oh.

(mutters and chuckles) Ooh, what?

(cackles) - Yeah, something like that.

(gentle music) (clock ticking) - What?

Um, if you're ready, um, we can, uh... (clock ticking) Hello!

Hello!

(Mr. Bean grunts) (balloon pops) (cheerful music) (cheerful music continues) (cheerful music continues) (cheerful music ends)