Hasta La Ideas

Before a brief role in Catwoman, a fabled appearance on the This Morning coffee table, CR also had some airtime in a mid-90s episode of Mr. Bean. It so happens that this 1995 episode was screened on ITV3 last night. It’s given us another chance to marvel in disbelief at the character who is clearly dressed to look like ‘a creative’…

An eagle-eyed collegue on Design Week – foregoing Midsomer Murders for the Bean rerun on ITV3 – noticed that in Hair by Mr. Bean of London, where the wobbly-faced mainman gets all flustered in a barber’s shop and ends up cutting the hair of three unsuspecting customers, one of them happens to be weilding an old issue of CR.

Gavin here informs me that yes, both he and Patrick had seen the episode before. But why was he recalling this through gritted teeth?

Well, let’s take a quick look at the attire of choice for the mid-90s creative in the episode. Beige suit jacket over white T-shirt? Check. Sunglasses? Mhmm. The latest mobile phone? Oh yes. And ponytail? Why of course.

Can anyone recall actually dressing like this?

For those of you wishing to relive some classic Beanean comedy, the relevant clips are below. But if you want to cut to the good stuff, the CR-weilding chap makes an appearance at 4.02 and brandishes his copy around 4.13. It’s a pretty good cover by the looks.

In the second sequence, where our creative gets his hair cut by Mr. Bean, he sits in the chair at 0.44 and in an example of some excellent continuity picks the issue up ‘twice’ at 1.02. While engrossed in his CR (it looks like he’s looking for a freelancer in the index section) Mr. Bean inadvertantly cuts his ponytail off. Good job Mr. Bean.

But what of Catwoman incident? Well, in the 2004 film, Halle Berry plays the feline superhero who is, by day, a graphic designer named Patience Phillips. So we were asked by the producers if we could send a batch of CRs over for her bookshelves.

To date, I can’t find anyone who’s spotted them. And I believe someone here in the office even watched all the way through…

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