A fan of the original ‘Mr Bean’ series has discovered it ...
By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London
If you’ve always wondered what the choir are singing about in the choral opening theme to ‘Mr Bean’… wonder no more.
A fan of the classic TV sitcom Mr Bean has discovered a recurring joke in the lyrics of the soundtrack.
The choral score, written by composer and former Classic FM presenter
Howard Goodall, repeats the line ‘Ecce homo qui est faba’, which translates into English as ‘Behold the man who is a bean’.
From the beginning of episode two onwards, Mr Bean (played by Rowan Atkinson) falls from the sky in a beam of light, accompanied by the theme.
There are other hidden gags which include the choir singing ‘end of part one’ and ‘part two’, as well as ‘Farewell, man who is a bean’ at the end of each episode.
Last year, the original Mr Bean TV series appeared on Netflix in the UK. A fan of the show, James Green, tweeted about his discovery after rewatching the episodes with the subtitles on.
His post has resurfaced again since Netflix retweeted it and Goodall himself posted about the hidden gag, saying:
“Honest truth is I didn’t realise this was a secret. I am delighted to have caused some glee though, all these years later.”
He said: “The only thing we could do was to prerecord the whole thing so Simon Rattle was waving his arms about just as I was, miming to the music.”
