The first episode of Mr. Bean which aired in January 1990.
Opening: Mr Bean is driving down a narrow road, in his orange Mini, behind a blue Reliant Robin. At a corner in the road, Bean overtakes the Reliant at a close distance, causing it to veer off the road, and nearly tip over. He arrives at an examination hall, driving right into a sign for the examination, locks his car with a padlock, and throws the keys into the back seat of the car.
The Exam: After finding a seat next to a fellow student (Paul Bown), and making conversation with him, Bean takes out many different things from his bag and pockets when he spots his fellow student doing the same. These include- at least a dozen pens and writing implements- a Pink Panther doll- a toy policeman- an alarm clock
When instructed to begin the exam, Bean discovers, to his horror, that he studied for the wrong exam (he concentrated on Trigonometry, and the paper he finds in the envelope is Calculus). Thus begins many attempts by Bean to cheat off his fellow student. These include
1) Trying to simply look at the other students' paper. When he notices, Bean suddenly acts as if he's remembered something, and pretends to go back to his exam
2) Pointing out something to the student that is in the opposite direction to his paper, while he is distracted, Bean copies down as much as he can. The student soon realises that he made a mistake and crumples the paper into a ball, and throws it away, much to Bean's irritation.
3) Bean quietly starts sliding towards the other student. When he accidentally hits the student, causing him to notice, Bean simply slides back the other way, completely nonchalantly. It is at this point, that the student realises what Bean is doing and jokingly tries to cheat off Bean, but Bean won't let him. Bean then tries going back to the original method of simply cheating off him normally, but the student turns the page over, and puts it under his elbow.
4) Bean puts his head sideways on the desk, and blows at the paper 2 or 3 times. The student looks around to feel what's going on
4)
This episode provides examples of:
- Ahem: The examiner does one when he notices Mr. Bean may be cheating. The latter responds with a fake laugh.
- Boring Religious Service: In Act 3, Mr. Bean attends a church service that is so mind-numbingly dull that he does everything he can to avoid embarrassing himself by dozing off. This is accentuated by the vicar's sermon, which consists entirely of unintelligible mumbling (also voiced by Rowan Atkinson).
- Couldn't Find a Tissue: During the boring church service, Mr. Bean sneezes, only to find he doesn't have a handkerchief on him, and ends up discreetly wiping his nose on the inside of his jacket pocket. Shortly afterwards, he absent-mindedly puts an unwrapped sweet in the same pocket, and cringes in horror when he realises what he's done.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Subverted. Bean is initially stumped by the maths exam because its questions are based on calculus, while he studied trigonometry. As the exam is about to end, the invigilator reveals that there was also a trigonometry paper inside he envelope.
- Drives Like Crazy: We see Mr. Bean driving for the first time, he comes close to colliding with another car and hits a road sign.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The first episode omits the usual 'falling from the sky' intro and choral theme song and instead simply begins with a subtitle and jaunty theme, though the standard intro is added on in later releases.
- Mr. Bean speaks a couple of sentences to another student that are slightly wordier and more coherent (albeit still in a funny-sounding voice) than his usual mumbling.
- He drives an orange Mini instead of a green one, which he crashes during the credits, perhaps explaining why he probably gets a new Mini later on.
- Free Wheel: Mr. Bean's car crashes offscreen at the ending, as one of the wheels bounces off and rolls over.
- I Want My Mommy!: Played for Laughs, as Mr. Bean gives up trying to cheat and copy the other student's work, and let's out cries out "Oh, Mummy!" before sleeping for the remainder of the exam.
- Riddle for the Ages: For what reason is Mr. Bean sitting an exam? Is it connected to an unseen job of his? We never find out.
- Visual Innuendo: Mr. Bean pulls out a Pink Panther toy that seems to have a huge dick at first, but it turns out it was just its tail.
