Obviously, anyone who is from U.K. knows he is but most people in other countries (like the U.S.) aren’t familiar with him.
 
Yet, everybody seems to know Mr. Bean, when someone says the name. It was his most popular creation. When I was a little kid, I used to love watching Mr. Bean on PBS here in the states. I even rented out videotapes of Mr. Bean episodes. Mr. Bean is a man-child to whom life is a difficult challenge where he can’t even do the simplest of tasks and can leave a mess wherever he goes. The show is mostly visual humor and slaptick with a main character who is usually silent (when he does speak he has a mumbling sort of voice).
 
Although, as I’ve become an adult, I have come to regard BlackAdder as Atkinson’s best work. Edmund BlackAdder is a sly schemer who will do just about anything to get his way. Both malicious and blissfully nasty, he is the opposite of Bean (who is a gentle soul). His name would exist throughout time as the series would go from Middle Ages to Elizabethan Times to the Napoleonic Era to the trenches of World War I. Tony Robinson always played BlackAdder’s not so bright sidekick Baldrick. It was from this series that I came to love British comedy, as it was an acquired taste for me. The series was a combination of droll, sarcastic humor along with situation comedy. It also helped launch the careers of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.
 
His stage sketches can be great too such as the one in which plays Satan called “A Warm Welcome” or the one in which he gives a sermon called “Amazing Jesus.” Rowan also did fine work on a sketch show in the late seventies called “Not the Nine O Clock News.”
 
He also has done some movies such “Bean” and “Mr. Bean’s Holiday” as well as the “Johnny English” films. Critics disliked them but they were big international moneymakers. He also did the voice of Zazu in “The Lion King” (1994)
 
So have you seen any of Atkinson’s films or TV shows?  If so what was your impression of him?