Did Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson Rip Off Grant Naylor? News Posted by John Hoare on 2nd January 2008, 05:44 No. Actually, I don’t mean to be rude about this one – unlike a lot of these kinds of theories, the argument is at least well considered and presented, with some, y’know, actual facts included. But there’s just too much analysis there, when it can be explained away very simply: if you’re going to do a scene set in an exam, then there are only a certain amount of jokes you can do. And so any good comedy writer will pick up on the same good jokes. The same can be said for many similar accusations of plagiarism: there are only so many jokes in the world. And so, the inevitable answer to the question “And what do Grant and Naylor have to say about this?” must surely be – not much…
Surely ‘The Exam’ was a very, very old bit of Atkinson’s stage show, possibly from as far back as pre-Blackadder? It’s obvious that nobody ripped anybody off, but I’d argue that the scene from Bean pre-dates The End by some margin. Also: This suggests that ?The Exam? may have been written sometime in 1989 ? shortly after the BBC commissioned the first thirty-minute installment of Mr. Bean. Complete guesswork presented as fact, followed by an unmistakable inaccuracy – Mr Bean was an ITV show, you dolt.
I never even noticed the similarities, and I thnk I know both scenes inside out. > when it can be explained away very simply: if you?re going to do a scene set in an exam, then there are only a certain amount of jokes you can do. Yeah… … but it’s still kind of nice to see the two scenes next to each other.
Complete guesswork presented as fact, followed by an unmistakable inaccuracy – Mr Bean was an ITV show, you dolt. Damn – I noticed that when I first read the article a couple of months ago, and completely forgot about it when I revisited it.
There’s not a chance these are remotely related. Maybe if Rimmer had pulled out a Pink Panther with it’s tail sticking out like a cock then there’d be a case. ‘The Exam’ scene is classic though. Only Rowan Atkinson could do it. If you haven’t already done so it’s well worth checking out youtube videos of his live act.
You could also say did G/N rip the gestalt entity idea off DNA. Probably not, but connections are fun. It’s a pity this one wasn’t researched very well.
