DesiDabba - Boss, Thoda Sa Roomani Ho Jaye

I believe if there was a choice to pick the 8th Wonder of the World then Mr. Bean would most certainly get my vote. I must confess I simply cant get enough of him in spite of devoting more than two hours every week night in front of the television, watching him do his jig on Pogo Channel.

Mr. Bean undoubtedly is one of the most successful British cultural tele-series to have made it big across several nations. It began back 1990 and its 16 half-hour programmes have been sold to more than 200 TV territories worldwide.

And the man responsible for making this tele-series an overnight success was none other but the ex-Blackadder, Rowan Atkinson. The crafty manner in which Atkinson presented Mr. Bean was like nothing ever witnessed in the history of British Comedy. Brits who are mostly known for their black and subtle humor in movies and television; here we had Bean, an obnoxious clumsy fool who could be quite brilliant at times. If the word “disaster” could be nicknamed then Mr. Bean would be just apt.

An over grown man, whose only object of attention and affection is his small teddy and a parrot green Leyland Mini car. The extent he is ready to go just to satisfy his self-interested goals, could be quite astonishing at times. A man of very little words ("Oh, no…" in a croaky, heavy British accent) his tactics for solving situational-problems are simply extra-ordinary and something that no sane-person would ever dare to do.

Stephen Fry, a renowned actor cum writer cum comedian cum novelist, once memorably said of Atkinson: "It is as if God had an extra jar of comic talent, and for a joke gave it to a nerdy, anoraked northern chemist."

But then again nothing in the Television Business remains free from the critic’s reprimand; some called it Atkinson’s worst performance, Bean was taunted as being extraterrestrial and for some it was the worst kind off Slapstick comedy. Though one wonders why everything has to be taken so literal, I mean Mr. Bean is just plain funny and that is its USP.

Another interesting point to note about the Mr. Bean series was that the show’s producers never got too hungry with its success. They cornered the market on crisp comedy – the seasons were not dragged nor were the episodes, or the jokes.

To me, Mr. Bean is truly unique – In a jiffy he could go from both rude and obnoxious, then turn right around and be so innocently oblivious. And that was his charm.