Mr. Bean Rides Again

Mr. Bean Rides Again
Season	1
Episode	6
Air date	February 17, 1992
Written by	Richard Curtis, Robin Driscoll, Rowan Atkinson
Directed by	Paul Weiland, John Birkin
Previous	The Trouble with Mr. Bean
Next	Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean

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

Plot

Act One: The heart attack

Mr. Bean wants to go to the post office, but his car engine cannot start because the battery has gone flat, so he decides to ride a bus instead. He reaches the bus stop where a man is already waiting. Unfortunately, the man suddenly suffers from a heart attack, distressing Bean. Mr. Bean tries to revive him in many ways 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 lamppost 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 and while the paramedics treat the man, Bean uses the battery in the ambulance to jump start his Mini. Mr. Bean drives off, leaving the ambulance disabled to a dead battery, which forces the paramedics to order a replacement vehicle.

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 hard sweet 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 accidentally throws his keys down a drain and has to get the bus home. When he tries to get on the bus however, the bus conductor refuses to let him on (because the seats are all full) so he has to wait for the next one.

Act Three: Packing

Bean tries to pack for a holiday, but his small case does not have space for his clothes as well as some 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, taking a small pair of swim briefs instead of board shorts, packing up only one Hawaiian shirt, and using a flannel for a towel though he doesn't the heart to cut up his 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 and he didn't want to empty it of the contents and put them in the larger one, he just puts the smaller suitcase into the larger suitcase along with the one thing he couldn't pack before — a book.

Act Four: The train ride

On a train, Bean reads a book while sitting across from another man in the same compartment who is also reading. The man begins laughing loudly and continuously at a funny text in his book. Distracted by his laughter, Bean covers his ears but struggles to do so while simultaneously reading and turning the pages of his book. He tries to turn them with his elbows, his chin, and even his tongue, but cannot, so he uses his tie and his jacket as earplugs and reads while using a torch light. He takes his "earplugs" off when the man stops laughing, but he soon starts laughing again, so Bean uses his socks as earplugs, eliciting curious stares when the man looks up, so he just throws them behind his shoulders. However, the man laughs harder, making Bean's "earplugs" ineffective. He finds chewed gum underneath the carriage seat and uses it as earplugs. The conductor enters the coach to check for tickets. However, Bean's "earplugs" are so effective, they make him oblivious to the conductor. He uses his ticket as a bookmark, but when the conductor startles him, he accidentally throws his book out of the carriage window with his ticket "bookmark" still inside, and the man continues to laugh.

Act Five: The flight

On an aeroplane, Bean listens to four music channels while he mimics what he hears on each channel. While mimicking what he hears on the fourth channel, he accidentally slaps a flight attendant, who asks him to look after a sick boy sitting next to him. Bean tries, but fails to entertain the sick boy by manualism, getting Teddy stuck between a seatback and tray table, pretending to vomit while mimicking turbulence with a toy aeroplane, making funny faces with magazine bits stuck to his eyes and tongue, and blowing the whistle on a lifejacket. When he offers the whistle to the boy, he accidentally inflates the lifejacket, but as Bean tries to deflate it, it flies out of his seat. He, who is reading the in-flight magazine upside down, then gets the lifejacket back from the flight attendant. Suddenly, the plane experiences turbulence. After the turbulence, Bean pretends to vomit again, blows air into a paper bag, and tries to pop it, but discovers that the bag is too small and has holes in it, so he looks for another bag. While his back is turned, the plane experiences turbulence again. The boy vomits into an air sickness bag and offers it to Bean, who blows it up. Upon him popping it, the screen turns black and the end credits roll, meaning the episode has ended.

Cast

• Rowan Atkinson - Mr. Bean
• Stephen Frost - The Laughing Man
• Roger Sloman - The heart attack man
• Nick Hancock - Train conductor
• John Rolfe - Postman
• Matilda Ziegler - Woman at bus stop (uncredited)

Behind the scenes

• 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 by making funny faces with paper strips torn from a magazine stuck to his eyes and tongue 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.
• Mr. Bean flies on a British Airways Boeing 737-200. In the turbulence scene, it is still a Boeing 737-200, but from a different airline with a livery similar to British Airways'. 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.  pretending to be a doctor by giving the man who had the heart attack the pills as that could cause his heart to stop).