Tee Off, Mr. Bean

"Tee Off, Mr. Bean"
Mr. Bean episode
Episode no. Episode 12
Directed by John Birkin
Written by Robin Driscoll
Rowan Atkinson
Produced by Sue Vertue
Original air date 20 September 1995 (1995-September-20)
Running time 25:25
Guest appearance(s)

"Tee Off, Mr. Bean" is the twelfth episode of the British television series Mr. Bean, produced by Tiger Aspect Productions and Thames Television for Central Independent Television. It was first broadcast on ITV on Wednesday, September 20, 1995.

Plot

Act 1: The Laundry

Mr. Bean goes to the launderette where he suffers a series of mishaps. First, he realizes the price of washing has increased from £2 to £3, so he curses and is forced to pull out a spare coin from a specially designed envelope in his trousers. A black belt thug (Grant Masters) then arrives and pushes Bean away into the next washing machine. Bean then proceeds to place his laundry (which consists of some shirts, an inflatable toy, a lampshade, Teddy, a welcome mat, over-sized fuzzy dice and a few pairs of underwear (each labelled with a different day of the week) into the washing machine.

Bean then realizes he has the wrong day's underpants on, so he stands behind a partition to change out of them, accidentally getting his trousers mixed up with a lady's skirt. As Bean, now-wearing a skirt, walks past the man, this motivates the thug into taunting him. Bean then finds that another pair of underwear has accidentally not been put into the machine, but by this time the machine has already been started, so he simply tries to put them on, but the thug interferes by stepping on them for his own amusement.

Finally having had enough of being bullied by the thug, Bean decides to take his revenge by switching the man's liquid detergent with a cup of black coffee from the vending machine. This finally works, as the man does not realize he is pouring the coffee into the machine instead of his detergent. However, Bean has to drink the detergent so that the thug will not suspect him for switching the cup. Later, the thug blames the launderette's owner as his martial arts gear emerges from the wash severely stained from the coffee.

After retrieving his mutated washing (including a shrunken Teddy) from the clothes dryer, Bean needs to retrieve his trousers from the lady's washing. He resorts to climbing into a dryer to find them, just as the lady returns and closes it (and starts it), with Bean still inside, and it then starts spinning.

Act 2: The Golf Play

That afternoon, Bean decides to play a game of mini golf. He scores a hole-in-one on the first hole but on the second hole, he hits the ball onto open grass. The owner (David Battley) forces him to play properly by using the club to get the ball back to the course. He then hits the ball out of the golfing grounds, resulting in a very elaborate journey across town as the ball ends up on a bus, inside a lady's shopping bag (she is later seen explaining the scene to a police officer), on a boy's ice cream cone, up the exhaust pipe of a Proton Saga (causing the engine to explode), down a drain, on a rubbish cart and finally onto the village green.

When Bean attempts to hitchhike back to the golf course, the first car that approaches is the blue Reliant Regal which suffered several mishaps thanks to Bean's driving through the run of the series. Bean is seemingly disgusted to see it and when the (unseen) driver pulls over and opens the passenger door, Bean pretends he's not seen him and the Reliant drives off. Another car pulls up, and Bean cuts out the patch of turf the golf ball landed on in order to allow him to return to the course without technically touching it.

As the sun sets and credits roll, Bean makes it back the course just as it is closing for the day and finally taps the ball into the hole, before leaving with a final score of 3,427 strokes.[1]

Production

The opening featured a new recording of the choral theme, performed by the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.

Act 1 was recorded at Teddington Studios before a live audience.

The Vauxhall Omega car that stops to give Bean a lift has music playing on the car stereo, the music is the (already established) theme tune to The Vicar of Dibley, another Richard Curtis comedy. The music was also composed by Howard Goodall. A new version of the theme is used in the opening titles, performed by the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.

The Miniature Golf course is close to Boulters Lock in Maidenhead – just south of the junction between Ray Mead Road and Derek Road. The Village Green is in Littlewick Green near Maidenhead – also seen in the episode where Teddy enters the Pet Show. The shops where Mr Bean attempts to putt his ball out of a lady's shopping bag is on Shifford Crescent, Maidenhead.

Despite the Village Green and the lady's shopping bag incident taking place in Maidenhead, Bean is seen boarding a South London 405 bus when his golf ball bounces into it. This bus route travels from Redhill to West Croydon Bus Station and is many miles away from Maidenhead, though the filming location for this scene is on Ray Mead Road, Maidenhead.

This is the only time Bean successfully boards a bus as he failed to board the bus twice in 'Mr Bean Rides Again'.

The scene were Bean cuts the soap using a grater was later reused in an episode of Mr. Bean: The Animated Series titled "Spring Clean", while the scene where Mr. Bean went inside the washing machine and is spun around is reused at the end of the episode "Goldfish".

Censorship

Bean drinking the detergent and getting in the drier are usually edited out of reruns on Nickelodeon (UK and Ireland), along with the scene where the car explodes due to the golf ball inside the car's exhaustion pipe.

References

  1. Nutters with Putters. Prints of Pirates. 2008. pp. 40–. ISBN 978-0-9560799-0-9. In "Tee off Mr Bean", Rowan Atkinson's character gets a hole-in-one on the first and 3,427 on the second.
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