Mr. Bean will return to ABS-CBN, but the character may be better off showing his comedic artistry to the Kapusos at GMA 7.
While watching a Tagalized and ‘intentionally’ edited episode of ‘Spongebob Squarepants‘ on ABS-CBN, I saw a program advisory at the bottom promoting the return of the Mr. Bean series on the Kapamilya network. Ok, that’s a given, because they need a program to fill in the usually off-peak early morning schedules. But Mr. Bean? You got to be kidding.
Mr. Bean, as I know, has been the property of ABS-CBN for a decade now. It began airing on Studio 23 on Saturday nights, with the animated shows in the morning. Then it was moved to the main Channel 2, and aired sporadically on weekday mornings, regardless of the live or animated version. Before that it used to air on PTV 4 and ABC (now TV5).
I always don’t like the way ABS-CBN aired Mr. Bean. They tend to edit some skits and combine one from a particular episode with another from a different episode. Worse, they only allotted 15 minutes of airtime, as opposed to the 30 minutes in a full episode. The airing of Mr. Bean on the Kapamilya network is both an insult and a disgrace to loyal Mr. Bean faithful.
So what if ABS-CBN and GMA traded their morning programs for each other? It has been well-documented that a few shows would move from one station to another in order to either give way to other programs or to purchase airing rights for future production. I have seen several programs air on both Kapuso and Kapamilya stations; programs such as ‘Eat Bulaga‘, ‘Meteor Garden‘ and ‘Rosalinda’ come to mind. But if I were the boss of either networks, I would suggest that ABS-CBN must give up Mr. Bean and send it to GMA, and in return GMA will trade rights for the animes such as ‘Pokemon’, ‘Dragon Ball’, ‘Yu Yu Hakusho’ (Ghost Fighter), ‘Slam Dunk’ and others in exchange for ABS-CBN’s ‘Digimon’, ‘Naruto Shippuden‘ and others. Of course, I would like to see a different morning look in both the Kapuso and Kapamilya stations.
In the meantime, ABS-CBN and GMA will continue to air ‘boring’ programming during the off-peak morning hours. Unless they make up their minds and trade their programs for each other, weekday mornings will continue to remain that way: ‘boring’.
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