Of Mr. Bean and The French Revolution

Lately, we've been delving into the history of the French Revolution. How did we become interested in that you might ask? Well, it's a bit of a strange journey. It all started with Mr. Bean , a comedic character played by Rowan Atkinson. Our whole family just loves physical comedians: Kramer from Seinfeld, John Lithgow, Jane Curtin, and Kristen Johnston in 3rd Rock from the Sun, old silent movie stars like Harold Lloyd, John Cleese in Fawlty Towers, and of course the imcomparable Rowan Atkinson. From Mr. Bean, we graduated to BlackAdder (I can't believe how many House fans do not know Hugh Laurie from his comedic genius in this series!), and one of our favorite episodes has to be where Edmund is consumed with jealousy over the Scarlet Pimpernel and all kinds of silliness ensue.

So typically, that evolved into discussions of who the heck the Scarlet Pimpernel is, and we checked out the relatively recent A&E/BBC version of the story starring Richard Grant & Elizabeth McGovern, which we've been enjoying in the evenings. That in turn has spawned many discussions about the French Revolution, revolutions in general, disaparity between the rich and the poor, mob justice,

It's always fascinating to me to see what we end up studying, reading up on, talking about, and thinking about, and how we got there in the first place. Often, it can be traced back to something seemingly small or inconsequential. When you keep a curious mind though, you end up in all kinds of fascinating places.