Mr. Bean: The Animated Series is a British animated sitcom produced by Tiger Aspect Productions in association with Richard Purdum Productions and Varga Holdings (for the first season). Based on the live-action television sitcom of the same title created by Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis, the sitcom centers on Mr. Bean (Atkinson), Teddy, Irma Gobb (Matilda Ziegler), the Reliant Regal's mysterious driver, Mrs. Julia Wicket (Sally Grace) and her cat Scrapper. In February 2001, the series was officially announced, with it premiering shortly afterwards. Debuting on 5 January 2002 and originally ending on 2 June 2004, the first three seasons featuring 52 episodes in total were broadcast, each consisting of two 11-minute segments. The first two seasons were originally broadcast on ITV at a Saturday night slot. In May 2004, the sitcom left the Saturday night slot and the third season was instead broadcast daily on CITV due to the show's popularity with younger audiences. In January 2014, a revival of the sitcom was announced, with Rowan Atkinson returning as the voice of Mr. Bean, along with other cast members reprising their roles. The revival premiered on 16 February 2015 and ended on 8 October 2019 on CITV. It contained more actual dialogue than in the original live-action sitcom, which mostly featured little sound effects and mumbling. In January 2024, another revival was announced, set to release in 2025 on ITVX in the United Kingdom and Cartoonito in Europe.

Cast and characters

Main

Supporting

Episodes

Reception

The show was met with mostly positive reviews from television critics. Common Sense Media, an education and advocacy group that promotes safe technology and media for children, gave the show 3 stars and wrote that the "UK slapstick cartoon [is] geared toward older kids, adults."

Home media

Mr. Bean: The Animated Series has been released on DVD by A&E Home Video in Region 1, and by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment in Regions 2 and 4. In the United States, the first three seasons of the show were released in its entirety on six volumes, while in the United Kingdom and Australia, the six volumes only contained 47 out of all the 52 episodes, with the remaining episodes instead appearing as extra features on DVDs of the original live-action sitcom. The reason for this was that when the five episodes were classified by the British Board of Film Classification in the United Kingdom, they were each given a PG certificate instead of a U certificate unlike the other episodes. It was then decided that all DVDs of the series should have a U certificate each, resulting in the five PG-rated episodes not being included. In Region 4, the DVD Mr. Bean: The Animated Series: Season 2, Volume 3 – Racing Adventures was an exclusive product for Big W; nowadays, it is no longer available.

In other media

A third-person platform video game based on the series was released in the late 2000s on multiple platforms. It was first released in PAL regions as Mr. Bean on the PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, and Microsoft Windows. A Wii port of the game, titled Mr. Bean's Wacky World, was also released shortly after those versions in the same regions, with a North American localisation of the port being available in 2011. Multiple mobile games based on the series have been released such as Mr. Bean: Around the World, Mr. Bean: Flying Teddy, Mr. Bean: Sandwich Stack, Mr. Bean: Special Delivery and more which are available globally on iOS, Android, and Amazon mobile devices.