Mr. Bean Rides Again

Mr. Bean Rides Again is the sixth episode of the live-action TV series. It originally aired over ITV on February 17, 1992.

Act One: The heart attack
Mr. Bean wants to go to the post office, but the battery in his car is dead, so he decides to catch a bus instead. He reaches the bus stop where a man is already waiting for the bus. Unfortunately the man suddenly suffers from a heart attack. Mr. Bean tries to revive him by stomping on him, stuffing pills down his throat, trying mouth-to-mouth resuscitation (first by pushing air from around him into his mouth with his hands then with the man's magazine) and using electric shock treatment using jump leads connected to the lamp post next to him. This initially works, but he forgets to remove the jump leads from his hands when the man offers a handshake, giving the man another electric shock which makes him pass out again. An ambulance comes, but while the paramedics treat the man, Mr Bean uses the battery in the ambulance to jump start his Mini. Mr. Bean drives off, leaving the ambulance disabled due to a dead battery.

Act Two: The stamp
Bean heads to a postbox and on his way he accidentally swallows his stamp. He offers to post a letter for a lady, pretends he's posted it but hangs on to it until she's gone so that he can get the stamp off hers for his own letter. He then steals the stamp by using steam from his car radiator and sticks it to his own letter using a sweetie stuck to the inside of his pocket and strikes it to his own letter with a fist (when using just one finger to stick it down doesn't work) and the lady's letter flies off. The postman arrives to empty the box just as the lady returns to find her letter on the ground and complains to the postman that there was a stamp on her letter but the postman doesn't care. Bean hides inside the postbox to avoid getting told off by the postman for the theft of the stamp and gets locked inside for an unknown amount of time (the original commercial break occurred here), though as the postbox had a "1" showing, it ought to have been the next day. He keeps trying to call out for attention, which goes unnoticed, and when he waves his tie out the hole, only to attract a dog who yanks on it, nearly choking him. When he is finally released (by another postman) he loses his keys down a drain and has to get the bus home. When he tries to get on the bus however, the bus controller refuses to let him get on (most likely full bus) so he has to wait for the next one. While waiting, he realises he still has his letter in his trousers so he hesitates to go post it not wanting to miss the bus if it comes, but eventually runs off to do so. As soon as he's gone, a lady with her pram comes out the ladies' hairdressing salon behind the bus stop, and goes to stand to wait for the bus locking the pram, and that's when Mr. Bean is back. He keeps trying to get his place back in line by butting in, pushing her pram away (unsuccessfully as it's locked), throwing the baby's toy in the street so she goes to pick it up, trying to unlock the brake on the pram, check the time, pushing her pram away, upsetting the baby by bouncing the pram hard, throwing a gum into the baby's mouth to make him stop crying and swallowing his gum to show it wasn't him when the mum pulls out a long string of gum, only to turn around and find out a blind man took his spot. So he keeps trying to squeeze in which doesn't work, quietly closes the man's walking stick so he get confused, but the lady helps him back into line and whispers in his ear that Mr. Bean did that, and he nods. He pulls his stick back out, taps Mr. Bean on the opposite shoulder, who then leaves the line to see where the person who tapped him went, and as he does that, the blind man steps into line, forcing Mr. Bean to be in second. Then Mr. Bean goes off and comes back mimicking the sound of the bus, making the blind man think he can get on, and the lady pulls him back onto the pavement, right before he gets run over by the actual bus. Then right as Mr. Bean is first in line again, the bus stops a few feet away, making the lady with the pram third, blind man fourth, and Mr. Bean last. The lady with the pram and the man get on but the bus man once again doesn't let Mr. Bean get on, and he's stuck there once again. He checks the schedule and gets anxious.

Act Three: Packing
Bean tries to pack for a holiday, but his small case does not have space for his clothes as well as his tins of baked beans. He ridiculously reduces the size of his things (often using scissors) to fit them in a small briefcase, by cutting up a pair of trousers (which turned out to be unnecessary since he already had shorts), breaking his toothbrush, pouring some toothpaste down the sink, taking just one sandal, and using a flannel for a towel but hasn't the heart to cut up Teddy. After finally managing to fit his things in the tiny briefcase, he reaches under the bed and discovers that he owned another briefcase, almost double the size of the small one. But since his small briefcase is already packed, he just puts it into the larger suitcase along with the one thing he couldn't pack before — a book.

Act Four: The man on the train
Bean boards a train cabin and then reads a book across from another man in the same compartment who is also reading. The man begins laughing loudly and continuously at a passage in his book. Bean struggles to plug his ears to avoid the laughter and turning the pages with his elbows and chin and then tongue, then plugging his ears with his tie, covering his head with his jacket, and reading with a flashlight. He then plugs his ears with his socks, eliciting curious stares when the man looks up so Mr. Bean just throws them behind his shoulders as girls do with their long hair. The man goes back to laughing. Mr. Bean then finds some bubblegum under his seat and plugs his ears with it. Finally the conductor (Nick Hancock, who also played the camera robber in Mr. Bean Goes to Town) comes in and asks for tickets. Mr. Bean, not hearing him, then takes out his ticket out of his pocket and puts it back in, not seeing him, so he leans in and Mr Bean, startled by his presence, accidentally ejecting his book, with the ticket tucked inside, out the train window. And the laughing man bursts out laughing again.

Act Five: The flight
Bean manages to get to the airport and board an aircraft, but is forced to look after a sick boy next to him. He tries to cheer the boy up by various means, by sticking magazine bits on his face to amuse him, playing with a self-inflating life jacket (it later flies out of Mr. Bean's seat) and by blowing air into a paper bag and trying to pop it. He discovers that the bag is too small, and starts rummaging for another bag. While his back is turned, the boy vomits into a Mid-flight Sick Bag when the aircraft experiences a bit of turbulence. When Mr. Bean turns back around, he sees the boy holding the sick bag and, believing he is being offered it, immediately blows it up and pops it, and the screen cuts to black, thus ending the episode (with the viewers being spared the messy outcome as the show ends).

Cast

 * Rowan Atkinson - Mr. Bean
 * Stephen Frost - The Laughing Man
 * Nick Hancock - Train controller
 * John Rolfe - Postman

Behind the scenes

 * This episode marks the first appearance of Mr. Bean's teddy bear (with a much smaller head than normal), later named Teddy.
 * This is the third and last episode to be shot on video and film.
 * The joke of Mr. Bean popping a vomit filled bag is reused in the movie Bean, although in this episode the scene ends without showing the outcome.
 * The joke of Mr. Bean cheering up the boy on the plane using paper strips torn from a magazine is reused in the second Mr. Bean film, Mr. Bean's Holiday, cheering up the Cannes Film Festival jury member and film director's son Stephan on the train.
 * The airplane that Mr. Bean was on was a British Airways Boeing 737-200. British Airways retired the said -200 model by 2001 and continued operating the -300, -400, and -500 models. The 737 fleet was later retired in 2009 and 2015.
 * The end credits of this episode is one of two to perform a volte-face: showing the reverse of the opening titles where Mr. Bean is sucked back into the sky, and the only one to do so with the street scenery. The first episode to do this was The Curse Of Mr Bean, except the black and white title sequence was used.
 * The heart attack scene was cut on Nickelodeon UK.
 * Mr. Bean would be in serious trouble in real life for using the battery from the ambulance to jumpstart his Mini and would also be arrested for murder (e.g.  impersonating a doctor by giving the man who had the heart attack the pills as that could cause his heart to stop).