Goodnight Mr. Bean

Goodnight Mr. Bean
Season	1
Episode	13
Air date	October 31, 1995 (UK) July 13, 1997 (ITA) September 14, 1997 (France) February 5, 1998 (Japan)
Written by	Robin Driscoll, Rowan Atkinson
Directed by	John Birkin
Previous	Tee Off, Mr. Bean
Next	Hair by Mr. Bean of London

Goodnight Mr. Bean is the thirteenth episode of the live-action TV series, produced by Tiger Aspect Productions and Thames Television for Central Independent Television. It originally aired over ITV on October 31, 1995.

For all across of 9 English uploads on both the official channel and Classic Mr. Bean channel masses 198 million views on YouTube as of 2025, with the 3rd reupload being the highest viewed out of all 9 uploads.

Synopsis

At a hospital waiting room, Bean tries to find a way to jump the queue at A&E due to his impatience. Later at a park, he tries to get his camera to automatically take a picture of him standing next to a Queen's Guard, all the while taking advantage of the guard's duty to remain still by doing all he can to comically alter his appearance. At the end of the day, Bean tries to cure his insomnia with some unusual methods at home.

Plot

Act One: The Hospital Waiting Room

Mr. Bean drives behind the ambulance to get to the hospital. As he parks his car too close behind the ambulance, the ambulance's back door is blocked, making the ambulance crew and the victim trapped inside. Inside the hospital, he becomes impatient waiting in the queue. So, he first throws away a girl's doll to force her to go with her mother and retrieve the doll and then starts a fight between two men by pinching the second man's bum in the queue. He receives a priority-numbered ticket after he explains his problem to the receptionist using gestures.

Bean sits down quickly, but greedily, before an elderly man does so. He meets a more seriously injured patient beside him and makes her jealous by stretching his neck, waving his hand, and crossing his legs. As the priority number called, 23, shows on screen, he checks his number ticket and is shocked by the number 76. His left hand is revealed with the teapot stuck on. The patient vengefully giggles. Impatiently, he replaces his ticket with hers. The patient tries to tattle on the recipient (but the bandages made her unable to talk), and Bean imitates her playfully to discourage the receptionist.

Another (but younger) patient arrives, a schoolboy who accidentally stuck a saucepan on his head, blinding him. The boy's ticket number is 85 (though it is way past his original number), and he draws another zero with a black marker pen, making it 850 (in reality it is unconvincing). When the number 24 is called out, Bean tries to cut through the queue by stealing the sleeping old man's number 24 ticket but is awakened by a second call, and Bean pretends to walk innocently.

Standing at the counter, he argues with the receptionist about his time. The receptionist receives a phone call as a distraction for Bean, who, by predicting the next precedence with the ticket number 52 in another way, turns the digital counter upside down. Excited, he sits down, and the nurse calls the next priority number, 52 (actually 25 on screen). Bean joyfully stands up in response, but his teapot enclosing his hand is grabbed by the seriously injured patient securely. A few people alert the receptionist, whose numbers are deceitfully skipped. The counter is increased next, showing 92 (actually 26), which a person luckily receives his same priority for, but frustrates Bean, who is unable to be released. The nurse finally resets the counter back to its original position, 26, so that another patient is accepted. Defeated, Bean sits down in anger, while the seriously injured patient giggles in triumph.

An hour later, the counter reaches the real 52, but Mr Bean is asleep. Unknowingly, his number 52 ticket had fallen from his finger onto the floor. The nurse picks it up and asks whose ticket it is. The seriously injured patient mumbles, and the nurse helps her in response. It eventually succeeds her place as her own ticket is returned. Bean wakes up to realise that the ticket is lost from his hands.

Angrily, he goes back to the queue. He encounters the same two men from earlier, but this time gently bumps into them, and both fight each other again. He confronts the receptionist and takes another ticket. He gets surprised by a higher number, possibly a similar waiting time. Disappointed, he throws it in the bin but then changes his mind to retrieve it until his other hand gets stuck in the bin. He pulls out a third ticket with his mouth and goes back to the seat to wait again, while both men are wrestling in the background.

Act Two: The Queen's Guard

Mr. Bean visits Windsor Castle, taking pictures in random places, including a window, a door, a rubbish bin and its contents, and a statue of Cupid (covering its genitals with a plastic food wrapper from the bin for censorship reasons before taking the picture).

As he passes by the Queen's Guard, the latter steps on his foot, shocking him. He looks around at the guard, who is emotionless and motionless. He tries to distract him with his fist, hand wave, and "boo" howl. Then he aims his camera to take a photo of the guard and himself (now called a "selfie"), but he zooms it out for more distance. He looks on a sundial (checks its shadow time on his watch) and pulls off the gnomon before placing his camera on it. Before taking a shot, he wipes the motionless Guard's steel buttons, blows the dust from the royal uniform, and combs the bearskin and moustache. He trims the moustache lightly with scissors but cuts them out, turning it into a Hitler moustache. He wipes the rifle clean, but carefully not to pull the trigger. As he goes back for the camera, he is not yet finished "decorating" the guard, so he picks several flowers to let them hang on the belt and shoulder locks and a wreath on the bearskin. He opens his handbag and uses a ping pong ball as eyes on the bearskin and uses a petal as a mouth. He gets his Teddy and impales him on the guard's bayonet. As it is prepared, he times the camera to take a picture. The charge from the sergeant is called, and the guard marches away, carrying the decorations and Teddy. Mr. Bean chases after the guard, but the shot is taken, showing only him walking away. His frustration is heard.

Act Three: Falling Asleep

Bean reading a book with teddy

Mr. Bean uses his brand new electric toothbrush. Its vibration shakes his head in any direction, and after he rinses his mouth with a water pistol. He brushes his ear and combs his eyelashes before saying "goodnight" to himself in the mirror. As he walks to his bed, his Teddy is already on it. He reads a storybook entitled "Asterix and Obelix" and laughs at it. He controls Teddy so that it doesn't read at all. Grabbing an idea, he takes a pair of mini spectacles and places them on Teddy's eyes. He then makes Teddy laugh harder at the storybook. He hypnotises him to sleep and places him carefully on his little bed under his. He lazily uses a pistol to shoot out the lightbulb, as it is revealed he has many spare bulbs in his drawer. Going to sleep, he unfortunately hears some gentle sounds: the clock ticking, a motorcycle zooming down the street, and some screaming cats. Disturbed, he dresses up as a dog to frighten them away.

His sleeping starts to fail: he gets insomnia. He picks an extended glove-on-a-stick to turn on the TV, and he changes channels to watch a wearisome chess competition between two concentrating players. This causes him to shut his eyes slowly. Suddenly, the programme changes to a Bodyform advert with loud rock music and a star transition, waking him up. He turns it off and finds another way. He displays a picture of a herd of sheep, and he miscounts them when "counting sheep". To count faster, he gets a calculator to multiply the row by the column, 27 by 15. He finds a result, 405, and finally falls asleep. After the credits roll, he suddenly falls out of bed.

Cast

• Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean
• Elizabeth Bennett as Hospital Receptionist
• Suzy Aitchison as Hospital Nurse
• Rupert Vansittart as Queen's Guard

Production

The opening and closing titles featured a new recording of the choral theme, performed by the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, which debuted in Tee Off, Mr. Bean. The first act was filmed at the permanently closed National Temperance Hospital in London. Studio sequences were recorded before a live audience at Teddington Studios.

Trivia

• In Act 1, when Mr. Bean parks his mini behind the Ambulance, this joke was also done in the animated episode, A Running Battle. The hospital waiting room scene where Bean waits impatiently and falls asleep due to a high number in his ticket also inspired the animated episode, Operation Wicket.
• Act 2 also inspired the animated episode, In The Wild, where Mr. Bean was trying to take a photograph of a frog and a butterfly, when the former ate the latter, and the latter hopped away, causing his photograph to be ruined and to go on frustration.
• Act 3 also inspired the animated episode, Bed Bean, where Mr. Bean accidentally broke his own bed while jumping on it like a trampoline and he caused trouble sleeping after multiple failed attempts of sleeping on various things.
• Mr. Bean is driving in his Mini at the beginning of the episode but it was destroyed in "Back to School Mr. Bean". Although, it is possible that this Mini was the one (registration ACW 497V) that was supposed to have been crushed in "Back to School Mr. Bean", and that Bean took it in as his own (or was given it in compensation) after his was destroyed by the tank.
• This was the last episode produced for Central Independent Television for ITV.
• Mr. Bean once again appears to have moved to a new flat.
• This is the only episode to feature the extended theme sung by the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral.

Censorships

• The pistol scene in Act Three was deleted from some children's channels due to gun violence.

Gallery

• TBA

Videos

• Goodnight Mr. Bean/Videos

In Other Languages

TBA