Mr. Bean Got the Beatles Treatment When He Came to Canada

While it’s not uncommon for rock stars to attract massive hordes of adoring fans, that’s usually not the case for middle-aged British comedians. But back in the ‘90s, a certain mostly-mute, possibly extraterrestrial character received Beatles-like attention from the Great White North. 

I am, of course, talking about Mr. Bean.

On March 1, 1996, Rowan Atkinson was scheduled to make a public appearance at the Eaton Centre shopping mall in downtown Toronto — not as himself, but in character as Mr. Bean. The fictional simpleton would autograph copies of his newly-released VHS tape at a desk set up in the middle of the mall. Simple, right? Well, not so much…

The world was in the midst of a full-blown Bean-mania. According to BlogTO, fans started lining up for the 12:30 p.m. event at 8 in the morning. By 10 a.m. so many people had arrived that security tried to turn away newcomers, informing them that “there was no way they would get to the front of the line” during the signing. 

By the time Atkinson showed up in his trademark rumpled brown jacket, he was surrounded by a staggering 3,000 Mr. Bean enthusiasts. 

One of those foolish attendees was me. I was only a kid at the time, but my school wasn’t far away, and the event happened to coincide with my lunch hour. It was genuinely intense, and totally shocking. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t a Woodstock-sized crowd of sweaty comedy nerds.

Again, Atkinson was in character the whole time. At one point he licked his lips in a Bean-like manner and I remember fans shrieking as if he was Elvis gyrating his hips on The Ed Sullivan Show. 

While I wasn’t aware of this at the time, apparently a lot of people were super-horny for Mr. Bean? The Toronto Star spoke with one fan who proclaimed, “I want him.” Another woman told the paper, “He’s my life — and I want him to have my baby,” adding, “I’d do anything short of selling my soul to the devil just to meet him.”

No one was more surprised by the attention than Atkinson himself. While still acting as Bean, he confessed to one fan that he was “flabbergasted.” As himself, he later told The Star, “It’s rather unsettling to be treated like Madonna.”

But things quickly took a turn when the crowd became aggressive. A number of people tried to push their way to the front, prompting the police to threaten to shut the whole thing down. No doubt sensing that the vibe had shifted, and that people were genuinely in danger of being crushed, Atkinson actually stood on top of his desk and urged people to stop pushing. But he still didn’t break character, meaning that his desperate request for fans not to trample anybody to death was delivered in that squeaky Mr. Bean voice. It was weird.

Even though the signing was scheduled for a full hour, Atkinson was “whisked away by security” after only around 20 minutes. On the plus side, this meant that I was able to get back to school on time.