
Bean is also similar to early silent films, relying purely upon physical comedy with Mr. Atkinson also cited the influence of Peter Sellers, who had previously played similar "fumbling fool" characters, notably Hrundi Bakshi in The Party (1968) and Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther films. Atkinson cited the earlier comedy character Monsieur Hulot, created by French comedian and director Jacques Tati, as an influence on the character. The character's name was not decided until after the first episode had been produced a number of other vegetable-influenced names such as "Mr. As it turned out, Atkinson's act at the festival was a test platform for his character and he wanted to see how his character's physical comedy would fare on an international stage with a non-English speaking audience. Having no French dialogue in his act at all, programme coordinators could not understand why Atkinson wanted to perform on the French bill instead. When programme coordinators were scheduling him into the festival programme, Atkinson insisted that he perform on the French-speaking bill rather than the English-speaking programme. One of Bean's earliest appearances occurred at the " Just for Laughs" comedy festival in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1987. A similar character called Robert Box, also played by Atkinson, appeared in the one-off 1979 ITV sitcom Canned Laughter which also featured routines used in the motion picture in 1997. A sketch featuring Bean was shown at the Edinburgh Fringe in the early 1980s. Bean was developed while Rowan Atkinson was studying for his master's degree in electrical engineering at The Queen's College, Oxford.
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The series has since been sold in 245 territories worldwide.

Bean" and has received a number of international awards, including the Rose d'Or. The series was viewed by 18.74 million viewers for the episode " The Trouble with Mr. Bean met with widespread acclaim and attracted large television audiences.

The series has been influenced by physical comedy actors such as Jacques Tati and those from early silent films. Bean, described by Atkinson as "a child in a grown man's body", as he solves various problems presented by everyday tasks and often causes disruption in the process.

Bean" on 15 December 1995.īased on a character originally developed by Atkinson while he was studying for his master's degree at the University of Oxford, the series centres on Mr. The series was originally broadcast on ITV, beginning with the pilot on 1 January 1990 and ending with " The Best Bits of Mr. The sitcom consists of 15 episodes that were co-written by Atkinson alongside Curtis and Robin Driscoll for the pilot, it was co-written by Ben Elton. Bean is a British sitcom created by Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis, produced by Tiger Aspect and starring Atkinson as the title character. Central Independent Television (1993–1995).
