Back to School Mr. Bean

"Back to School Mr. Bean" is the eleventh episode of the British television series Mr. Bean, produced by Tiger Aspect Productions and Thames Television for Central Independent Television. It was first broadcast on ITV on Wednesday, 26 October 1994 and was watched by 14,450,000 viewers during its original broadcast.

Part One
Mr. Bean attends an open day at a local school. While looking for a place to park his Mini, he spots a near-identical Mini in a reserved parking space and replaces it with his own. He then confuses a troop of cadets by giving them commands which cause them to stand in unusual stances; the commander scolds the troop upon his return. Inside the school, Bean touches a Van de Graaff generator that leaves his body electrostatically charged, causing a pamphlet to stick to his hand. When he gives the pamphlet to another woman, her dress rises up, exposing her white knickers, she screams in embarrassment, which prompts Bean to escape the scene.

Part Two
In the chemistry lab, Bean experiments with several chemicals that causes an explosion. Bean then joins an art class and starts drawing a still life of a bowl of fruit, but the bowl is soon replaced with a nude model. When Bean realizes this, he is reluctant to draw any further, so he makes clay pots at the potter's wheel and places them on the model's breasts.

While partaking in a judo class, Bean overtakes the instructor by pushing him to the ground and rolling him up in a mat. Upon changing back into his regular clothes, Bean finds that he is wearing someone else's trousers and searches for his own. He soon finds a man in the men's toilets wearing them. Bean grabs the man by the legs, pulls the trousers off, and throws back the man's underpants.

Bean exits the school and sees his Mini in the car park, but stops to buy a cupcake from a cake stall. As he eats the cupcake, a giant Chieftain tank crushes his Mini as part of a demonstration. After doing a double take on what just happened, Bean drops his cupcake in shock and is close to tears, before he sadly examines the wreckage and finds that the padlock he used to lock the Mini is unharmed. Satisfied, he smiles and walks off.

Continuity
During The Best Bits of Mr. Bean, Bean finds the wreckage of his destroyed Mini in his loft.

Even though the Mini has been crushed, it reappears two episodes later in "Goodnight, Mr Bean". This Mini was also Austin Citron Green with a matte black bonnet also with the registration number SLW 287R. It is possible that this Mini was the one (registration ACW 497V) that was supposed to have been crushed in the episode and that Bean took it in as his own after his was destroyed by the Army Tank.

Cast

 * Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean
 * Suzanne Bertish as the art teacher
 * Cindy Milo as the nude model in the art class
 * Sam Driscoll as the boy chemistry lab
 * Christopher Ryan as judo student
 * Lucy Fleming as the angry teacher with the boy
 * David Schneider as the judo instructor
 * Harriet Eastcott as the young electrocuted woman
 * Christopher Driscoll as the man in school corridor
 * John Clegg as the calligrapher
 * John Barrard as the stamp collector
 * Al Ashton as ACF Drill Instructor
 * Robin Driscoll as Man in School (uncredited)

Production
There were three cars crushed during filming. Two cars were specifically built for filming this episode and were painted with the same colour scheme as the main car; but with the engines removed. One of these two Minis was also used for the part where Mr. Bean substitutes his car with the identical car (registration ACW 497V). One of the three main cars with the engine removed was also crushed by the tank.