憨豆先生，你凭什么走红36年

‘Mr. Bean’ Is Still Baffled, Bumbling and Beloved

憨豆先生，你凭什么走红36年

Quick: Which two television shows have the most Facebook fans?

速问速答：在Facebook上粉丝最多的两个电视剧是什么?

We’ll tell you. No. 1 is “The Simpsons,” boasting 69.6 million likes on its official page. No surprise there. Smiling yellow animated families play well all over the world.

让我们来告诉你。第一名是《辛普森一家》(The Simpsons)，它的官方主页得到了6960万个赞。这没什么好意外的。这一家子欢乐的黄色动画小人在全世界都受欢迎。

Rowan Atkinson as the title character in 1995.

罗恩·阿特金森饰演憨豆先生，1995年。

No. 2, however, may raise a few eyebrows, particularly in the United States. It’s a show whose regular run ended 20 years ago, with only 14 episodes to show for it. A show with very little dialogue, much of that consisting of wordless grunts and mumbles. A broadly comic show with a jarringly artificial laugh track that felt antiquated even in its own time. A show entirely focused on a jug-eared comedian with an unusually square face, sloping nose and beetle brows, a visage that could be alternately menacing and angelic.

不过，第二名可能有点出人意料，尤其是在美国。这部电视剧只有14集，而且早在20年前就已结束常规播出。它的对白很少，大部分还是语义不明的咕咕哝哝。这部非常滑稽的电视剧配以极不协调的罐头笑声——这种做法即使在当时也感觉有些过时。它完全围绕一个长着招风耳、怪异方脸、大鼻子和浓眉毛的喜剧演员展开，这样的容貌看起来时而凶恶，时而像天使。

Yes, the second-most-liked TV show on Facebook is “Mr. Bean,” at 61.5 million. To put that in perspective, “The Walking Dead,” by some measures the most popular scripted show on American television right now, has about half that number (31.9 million). “Game of Thrones”? 14.4 million.

是的，Facebook上排名第二的最受欢迎的电视剧是《憨豆先生》(Mr. Bean)，它获得了6150万个赞。我们做个比较：依照某些标准衡量，现在美国最受欢迎的电视剧是《行尸走肉》(The Walking Dead)，它的粉丝数只有《憨豆先生》的一半(3190万)。《权力的游戏》(Game of Thrones)呢?1440万。

It’s not surprising, given that kind of social-media hegemony, that the awkward, arrogant, narcissistic naïf created 35 years ago by Rowan Atkinson (with help from the writer Richard Curtis) is enjoying his fourth or fifth life. A new animated “Mr. Bean” series, voiced by Mr. Atkinson, began in February on the children’s network CITV in Britain. (It follows an earlier animated series about a decade ago.) And on Tuesday, Shout! Factory released “Mr. Bean: The Whole Bean,” a four-DVD set with the 14 episodes of the original TV show.

35年前，罗恩·阿特金森(Rowan Atkinson)在编剧理查德·柯蒂斯(Richard Curtis)的帮助下塑造了这个笨拙、自大、自恋、天真的人物，如今他正经历第四次或第五次复活。鉴于如今社交媒体的霸主地位，这并不令人惊讶。新一季动画版电视剧《憨豆先生》(Mr. Bean)由阿特金森配音，2月份在英国少儿电视台CITV开播(它的故事情节与10年前的上一季动画版电视剧衔接)。周二，Shout! Factory推出了四碟DVD套装《憨豆先生全集》(Mr. Bean: The Whole Bean)，收录了最初的14集真人电视剧。

It was Mr. Curtis — who would later become the king of the British rom-com with “Notting Hill” and “Love Actually” — who suggested to his comedy partner, Mr. Atkinson, the idea of a purely visual piece in the style of the French master Jacques Tati. “The starting point, I remember, was where he said, ‘Why don’t we try and do a sketch about a man who can’t stay awake in a situation where you’re supposed to stay awake?’ ” Mr. Atkinson, 60, said recently by phone from London.

柯蒂斯后来凭借《诺丁山》(Notting Hill)和《真爱至上》(Love Actually)成为英国浪漫喜剧之王。最初，是他向喜剧搭档阿特金森提出创作一个纯视觉小品，风格模仿法国喜剧大师雅克·塔蒂(Jacques Tati)。“我记得，最初他是这么说的，‘我们何不排个小品，讲述一个在应该保持清醒的情况下却总是犯糊涂的人呢?’”60岁的阿特金森最近在伦敦通过电话说。

That was in 1979, and the sketch — which evolved into a scene of a man struggling to stay awake in church — was performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Mr. Bean popped up onstage occasionally over the next decade while Mr. Atkinson appeared in the TV shows “Not the Nine O’Clock News” and “Black Adder.” Finally, in 1990, “Mr. Bean” made its premiere as a half-hour special that included the church sketch. More episodes appeared, a few per year, through 1995. Two feature films followed.

那是1979年，他们在爱丁堡边缘艺术节(Edinburgh Festival Fringe)上表演了这个小品，那时它演变为描绘一个在教堂里强忍着不睡着的男人。在接下来的十年里，阿特金森在出演电视剧《恶搞整九新闻》(Not the Nine O’Clock News)和《黑爵士》(Black Adder)之余，偶尔也登台饰演憨豆先生。1990年，《憨豆先生》终于以半小时特别节目的形式首播，其中包括那个教堂小品。后来每年播出几集，直到 1995年。随后出现了两部电影版《憨豆先生》。

The character has remained steadily popular in Britain, with Mr. Curtis and Mr. Atkinson producing sketches for Comic Relief fund-raisers and Mr. Atkinson appearing as Mr. Bean in the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics. (The irregularity and small number of “Mr. Bean” episodes made the show hard to program on American TV in the days before viewers became accustomed to short-season British series. Episodes appeared during the 1990s on HBO and PBS, but it never gained the kind of following here that it did in the rest of the world.)

憨豆先生这个角色在英国一直很受欢迎。柯蒂斯和阿特金森不断创作憨豆先生小品，为慈善项目Comic Relief募捐。阿特金森还以憨豆先生的形象亮相2012年伦敦奥运会开幕式(《憨豆先生》剧集较少，播出时间不规律，当时美国观众还不适应短小的英国连续剧，所以它很难在美国电视台安排播出。20世纪90年代，HBO和PBS频道播出了其中几集，但它在美国从未获得在世界其他地方的那种追捧)。

Bean sketches follow a formula: The character is placed in an everyday situation — taking a test, shopping, packing for vacation — that disintegrates into a cascading series of predicaments and embarrassments. Mr. Bean responds with both prancing panic and a manic ingenuity that nearly always backfires. The comedy comes equally from the slapstick contortions through which Mr. Atkinson puts his Gumby-like frame and the unraveling of Mr. Bean’s sang-froid in a welter of winces, recoils and popping eyes.

憨豆先生的喜剧套路是这样的：他总是置身日常场景——考试、购物、为度假整理行装——最后总是陷入越来越尴尬的窘境。他总是陷入恐慌，手忙脚乱，在狂躁中想出一些奇怪的应对办法，这些办法几乎总是适得其反。它的喜剧效果既源自阿特金森表演各种闹剧时酷似冈比(Gumby)的表情和肢体动作，又来自憨豆先生失去冷静时畏畏缩缩的行为和睁得溜圆的眼睛。

The lack of dialogue is commonly cited as the main reason for his universal appeal. You don’t need to know English to understand the sketch in which Mr. Bean, dressed as usual in a shirt buttoned to the chin and a pair of high-water trousers, changes into bathing trunks on the beach by pulling them on over his pants, then pulling off one pant leg and tugging it through the crotch of the trunks.

人们普遍认为，没有对白是憨豆在全球受到普遍欢迎的主要原因。即使你不懂英语，也能看懂这样的桥段：像往常那样，穿着扣子扣到下巴的衬衫和吊脚西裤的憨豆先生，为了在海滩上换上泳裤，先把泳裤穿在裤子外面，然后把一条裤腿褪下，从泳裤的裆部塞过去。

The ordinariness of the situations also plays a role — as crazy as the sketches get, the fundamental problems Mr. Bean faces are ones we all encounter, like mistakenly ordering the steak tartare or picking up the wrong credit card. Of course, when we try to exchange cards with the man who picked up ours, we don’t end up following him through the store and cowering behind him in a restroom stall while he sits on the toilet.

不过，场景日常也是憨豆先生受欢迎的原因之一。虽然这些喜剧桥段很是荒唐，但是憨豆先生遇到的基本问题是我们所有人都可能遇到的，比如误点了鞑靼牛排，或者拿错了信用卡。当然，我们想把卡片换回来时，不会跟着对方穿过商店，不会在人家走进厕所隔间在马桶上坐下时，还畏畏缩缩地跟在后面。

Mr. Atkinson feels that the most important factor is Mr. Bean’s innocence. “Once you’re denied language, denied words, and you need to express yourself in a purely visual way, you tend to acquire a very childlike demeanor,” he said, citing Benny Hill and Charlie Chaplin as other examples of the naïve comic hero. “There’s always this sort of feeling of a childlike innocence combined with a childlike vindictiveness and selfishness and instinctive anarchy. I think I was considering him like an 11-year-old boy who’s given the responsibilities of an adult but hasn’t learned better. So what is funny about him is watching an adult behave in a way that adults are not supposed to behave.”

阿特金森认为，憨豆先生最重要的一点是天真。“当一个人不能说话、不能写字，只能用面部表情和肢体动作表达自己的意思时，他的行为举止就会变得非常像小孩，”他说。他还说，本尼·希尔(Benny Hill)和查理·卓别林(Charlie Chaplin)也是天真型喜剧角色的代表。“这个角色孩子般的天真里总是带着孩子气的恶意和自私，以及本能的混乱。我把他看做一个11岁的男孩，他要肩负起成年人的责任，但还没完全学会。他的好笑之处就在于，一个成年人以成年人不该有的方式行事。”

When the second Bean film, “Mr. Bean’s Holiday,” was released in 2007, Mr. Atkinson told interviewers that he was done playing the character. He was worried that it would be uncomfortable — even sad — to watch a middle-aged man playing the eternally childlike Mr. Bean. But now he’s glad he didn’t listen to his own advice. “Rather oddly, middle age suits Mr. Bean more in many ways than youth,” he said. “I suppose this sort of sad selfishness perhaps works better in an older-looking man than in a younger-looking man.”

2007年，憨豆先生系列第二部《憨豆的黄金周》(Mr. Bean’s Holiday)上映。阿特金森在采访中说，他不会再演这个角色了。他担心，看着一个中年男人饰演永远长不大的憨豆先生会让人觉得不舒服，甚至觉得悲哀。但是现在他很高兴当时没有听从自己的建议。“很奇怪，从很多方面看，在中年时期饰演憨豆先生比在年轻时要合适得多，”他说。“我猜这种可悲的自私由一个岁数大些的男人来表现，也许比让一个年轻男人来表现效果更好。”

Mr. Atkinson is now busy voicing 52 short episodes for the new animated series, and he’s well aware of, if somewhat bewildered by, the Facebook numbers. It seems safe to say that Mr. Bean won’t be going away anytime soon.

阿特金森现在正忙着为52集的新动画系列短片配音。他很清楚《憨豆先生》在Facebook上大受赞扬，虽然这也让他感到费解。几乎可以肯定的是，短时间内憨豆先生不会从人们的视线里消失。

“There seems to be nothing about the character that people feel is too dated,” he said. “I mean, there may be if I act him too much in advanced middle age. But at the moment he seems to be O.K.”

“人们好像都没觉得这个角色有任何过时的地方，”他说，“我是说，等我年纪再大一些，演这个角色演得太多的时候，人们可能会有这种感觉。但是目前来看，似乎还可以。”