Irma Gobb is a main character and one of the protagonists in both Mr. Bean and Mr. Bean Animated Series. She is portrayed as Mr. Bean's girlfriend.
Summary
Irma Gobb is a main character in Mr. Bean and Mr. Bean: The Animated Series. She is portrayed as Mr. Bean's girlfriend. Of all the characters in the franchise, she is the most able to tolerate his antics to some extent, due to her being in love with him.
Irma is considerably more mature than Mr. Bean in some respects, such as when she is raising money for a donkey charity or supervising children as a scout leader she also works as a librarian from time to time at the library. Despite this, she has quite a short temper and also can be seen acting just as childish as Mr. Bean sometimes, an example of this is when she wanted to go to Paris but Mr Bean didn't want to so to make him she kidnapped Teddy and didn't free him unless Mr. Bean takes her on vacation.
On her first appearance, Irma's role was credited as just The Girlfriend; the name "Irma Gobb" appeared for the first time in the book Mr. Bean's Diary (although in that book Irma does not actually become Mr. Bean's girlfriend in spite of his best efforts).
In the Comic Relief sketch "Torville & Bean", Bean is accompanied by a female companion portrayed by Sophie Thompson whose overall appearance resembles Gobb's.
Series Debut
Mr. Bean (TV series)
Irma is shown to be Mr. Bean's girlfriend and makes her debut in Mr. Bean in the episode The Curse of Mr. Bean. where she is seen waiting for Mr. Bean in the cinema and upon his arrival, is given a miniature bag of popcorn, paling in comparison to his own and while already being anxious to look at the horror movie, Irma is constantly tormented by Mr. Bean's attempt at scaring her, which prove effective right up until the end of the movie, where ironically she managed to scare them both due to having her coat sleeve hanging and as Mr. Bean grabbed it, was frightened by the fact her hand was not there and his scream in turn scared Irma.
Mr. Bean: The Animated Series
In Mr Bean: The Animated Series, Irma retains being Mr. Bean's girlfriend and made her debut in the episode Birthday Bear where she is seen coming upstairs to celebrate Teddy's birthday, to what Mr. Bean had forgotten about and leaves behind a card before storming off to only later return on the evening with her own stuffed bear named Lottie, where they all celebrate Teddy's birthday via eating a whole cake, playing multiple games and then watching a fireworks display through the window and seemingly forgives Mr. Bean for his forgetfulness by giving him a kiss on the cheek. Her most recent appearance is in A Car for Irma episode in October 2019.
Biography
Mr. Bean (TV series)
To be added.
Mr. Bean Animated Series
Early life
Irma Gobb was most likely born in London, United Kingdom. Her parents' names are unknown as well as her other relatives' names but her mother was mentioned once by her in the episode "Coach Trip" of Season 5, yet she wasn't seen in this episode. From an old photo shown to Mr. Bean by his old, childhood friend (or an acquaintance), Harry in the episode "The Visitor" of Season 3, it is revealed that Irma attended the same kindergarten or primary school as Mr. Bean and many other characters, like the Reliant Regal driver, Harry himself and The Thieves. She possibly became friends with Mr. Bean during those years of her life and immediately fell in love with him. Despite that Mr. Bean only partly shown interest to her and was rather interested in other things, like his plush and plastic toys and cars, including his dream car at the time - a green Mini Cooper, which he owns now.
However, he sometimes allowed her to express her feelings towards him. We can see young Irma being interested in Bean in the episode "Young Bean" of Season 2, when she notices Bean with his mother walking through the pavement on the opposite side from the side she was standing on and she also thought that he is looking at her and wanted Bean to come to her, so he could give her a kiss. Bean stopped holding his mother's hand and ran through the road full of cars, just to get closer to his dream car at the time, which he later kissed, leaving Irma dissapointed that he didn't wanted to give her a kiss, but instead kiss his dream car. In this scene we can also notice that Irma is holding a plush, teddy bear that kind-of resembles Mr. Bean's plush called Teddy, but her plush, unlike Bean's has a large, pink bow on the top of its head, it wears a pink skirt and it also has visible eyelashes, intending that the teddy is supposed to be female. The fact that she owns a similar teddy to Bean could mean that she wanted a plush like that due to the fact Bean owned a similar one or maybe because these specific teddy bears were popular at the time they were both young children. In the episode "Double Trouble", Irma's teddy bear name was revealed, it is Lottie.
Later relationships
As Irma grew up, she remained being Mr. Bean's (best)friend, which later turned into them being together at some point. Despite the fact that they are canonically together, they both rather act like they are best friends rather than taking the relationship seriously and there were several moments where they cheated on each other, with Irma cheating on Bean with a violinist, working in the Restaurant La Cuisine. In the episode "Hot Date" we see both Bean and Irma going on a date, first to the cinema, later to a restaurant. Everything goes all good, but when the time of restaurant closing came, the waiter came to Irma and Bean's table so he could pay and he unfortunately forgot his wallet at home and Irma didn't seem to have enough money to pay the bill, so he had to rush to his flat to get the wallet quickly.
During that time the violinist notices desperate Irma and decides to pay the bill for her. Irma, who has already secretly fallen in love with him, decides to start dancing with the violinist, while the other violinist plays some classical, romantic music for them. At the same time Mr. Bean returns, but it is too late. When he wants to enter the restaurant, the doors are already locked and when he goes up to the window next to the door, he sees Irma, dancing with the violinist, that gives her a flower. Mr. Bean becomes furious and he runs up to his car, but before he opens the door, he sees Irma coming out of the restaurant, soon accompanied by the violinist.
Bean becomes sad and then mad at them both, and even more mad when the Reliant Regal car drives off the restaurant's back parking, flashing his face with bright light. So Bean decides to drive after the Reliant Regal and some seconds later Irma and the violinist drive from the parking as well. Bean drives around a small park with Reliant Regal and the violinist's car stops there. The violinist and Irma almost kissed on the lips, but on the same time the Reliant Regal car came driving from one way, and a taxi from another, causing the Reliant Regal crash into the violinist's car, and the taxi driving off. The violinist begins to whack the Reliant Regal driver with his violin as a revenge, and at the same moment Mr. Bean drives up to the front of the accident with his Mini. Irma decides to get into Bean's car and they both start laughing at what happened, everything ends up well for Mr. Bean and Irma.
In the episode "Double Trouble", Irma fell in love in Mr. Bean's doppelganger - Mr. Pod, due to the fact he had a better, more appealing personality to her and treated her better when it came to relationships. She first meets him when Mr. Bean and him return from a park during evening, after they got to know each other there for the first time. They all talk by the table in Mr. Bean's flat and then Mr. Bean comes with an idea to cook or prepare something to eat. All agree so he starts to prepare something and at the moment Mr. Pod starts to flirt with Irma, and she likes it. Mr. Bean soon comes with food to the table. He brings pickles, but leaves both Irma and Pod dissapointed, due to the fact they thought he could prepare something better. Soon Pod comes with an idea to cook something by himself. At the time Bean tries to talk to Irma and encourage her to play with teddies for fun but she prefers Mr. Pod's plush Pingy much more than Teddy. Some minutes later Mr. Pod comes to the table and lights a candle. Then he quickly returns to the kitchen to take the food that is put on a waiter's trolley, uncovers it and pours some sauce on the delicious and juicy chicken wings with lettuce he has prepared. He gives one to Irma with a special spoon intended for this, but Mr. Bean decides to simply take them by himself and takes lots of them.
After supper, Irma and Mr. Pod dance to Irma's favourite singer, Andre's music, whilst Mr. Bean clips his nails, sitting on the sofa with all the plush toys, and he is visibly jealous and rageous. Some time later, Pod and Irma leave Mr. Bean's flat. When they are all at the front door, Irma kisses Bean on the cheek quickly to say goodbye and Mr. Pod then says goodbye as well and shakes Mr. Bean's hand. Mr. Pod notices some flowers growing on Julia Wicket's lawn and gives one to Irma before they both get to the car. When Mr. Pod wants to say last goodbye to Mr. Bean, he just sees him closing the front door. Then Bean goes to his flat again, filled with rage. He slams his door and breaks a photo of Irma that was previously hanging on the wall and then he notices that Irma has left her plush, teddy bear, Lottie on the sofa next to his plush, Teddy so he decides to take both Lottie and Teddy and drive to give Lottie back to Irma. He notices Pod and Irma in Pod's car and decides to drive behind them and succeds to do that, until he is forced to stop on red light and he loses Mr. Pod's car.
At the time, Pod and Irma drive through some empty and quiet street and Mr. Bean is driving further but still sees them and knows where they are. Mr. Pod stops on a hill and Irma and he notice a shooting star. At the same time Mr. Bean notices not the shooting star, but an entire, enormous spaceship, glooming bright lights everywhere. He becomes shocked, but still happy and decides to drive up to the spaceship now. Then Mr. Pod and Irma stop by the spaceship and Pod says "It's time", intending to get back home with the spaceship. The spaceship lands and a large door opens. He drives inside and Irma becomes more and more terrified and stunned by the mysterious object. She comes out of the car and Mr. Pod introduces her to other species of Mr. Pod's kind and shows their cars and that they all have different jobs like vacuuming or tea serving. More and more Mr. Pod-like aliens come to Irma trying to say hello, but Irma becomes too confused about what's going on and decides to run from the spaceship. Pod thinks he did something wrong.
Irma warns Mr. Bean that has just driven to the front of the spaceship and tells him that he mustn't go inside, but Mr. Bean ignores her and decides to go inside the UFO. Irma tells him to come back, but he can't hear her. Soon Bean greets other aliens and the spaceship's door closes and it begins to fly.
Irma starts sobbing and flowing with tears. Mr. Bean farewells her, but doesn't show much sadness, whilst Mr. Pod sheds a tear whilst he says goodbye to her, showing visible sadness. Irma now sobs even harder. So Pod decides to eject Bean from the spaceship due to the fact he thinks it's not okay to leave her without her boyfriend, Mr. Bean. The spaceship's door opens and Mr. Bean falls out of it, along with his Teddy. Even before he got back on his legs, Irma ran to him but was stopped by the UFO, beaming her with a laser causing her to loss of her memory of past several hours.
She runs to Bean, trying to get him back on his legs and gets Teddy out of the ground and notices Bean looking at the sky, saying: "To the next time", referring to Mr. Pod and the spaceship. Irma, after the memory loss obviously doesn't remember Pod and anything associated with him and tells Bean: "What next time? We're going anyway" and they walk to Bean's Mini and they both end up driving back to their homes.
In the episode "Valentine's Bean", Irma fell in love with a librarian working in the same library as her. She first meets him on Valentine's Day when she was working in the library, almost off to home. The librarian notices Irma and gives her a flirtful wink, she laughs. She looks into the room the librarian went into and some seconds later she notices a valentine card standing on her desk. Irma is surprised by it and reads it, but it doesn't say from whom it is so when the librarian comes up to her again to take some books from the desk, she kisses him on the cheek and asks him if he's the one that has given the card to her, but then Mr. Bean stops hiding from behind the desk and gives the librarian an evil stare caused by his jealousy. So Irma now asks Bean if the card is from him and he agrees. Irma laughs and kisses him on the cheek, but Bean wipes it off, as usual.
Seconds later the librarian flirts to Irma again, now in front of Bean that becomes even more jealous so he tries to divert their attention and says: "Oh, look at the time". They all then stare at the clock that now shows 5:01 pm. and Irma says "We're off then" and goes to a room next to her desk to take her things. At the time Mr. Bean and the librarian decide to have a eyebrow-raising contest and when Irma returns with her coat on, Bean and Irma leave. When Bean notices her saying goodbye to her workmate, he grabs her by her coat. They go off the library stairs, all the way to Bean's car. He opens the car and shows Irma a bouquet of beautiful, red roses, wrapped in a foil with pink hearts he has bought for her. Irma gasps and grabs the bouquet. She is visibly joyful of the gift Bean has given her. Then she notices Bean's plush bear, Teddy being fastened by the belt and put on the car seat like he is a real person and she gets kind of irritated by it. Mr. Bean soon reclines the front seat, so Irma can sit in the back.
When they both get inside the car, Bean asks Irma if she wants to go for a dinner, flauting his eyebrows and she agrees, imagining them having a romantic dinner in a gazebo without walls in fresh air, on a small island decorated in red roses and small, sparkling trees decorated in them. She imagines her wearing a hot pink dress and pearl jewellery: a pearl necklace and a pair of pearl earrings and imagines Bean wearing a fully white suit, along with a white shirt and a black bowtie. In her imagination they are eating a luxurious dinner and drinking fizzy champagne, but in reality they end up eating the dinner in a local park, sitting on a bench. She is dissapointed, because she expected something else from Bean.
Then he pulls out two sandwiches wrapped in basic paper, he has prepared in his home earlier. Irma opens the sandwich and is disgusted by it, despite the fact it's has not gone bad yet, she just expected different kind of food on Valentine's Day. She decides not to eat the sandwich, whilst Mr. Bean eats it with pleasure, even licking his finger to show how tasty he thinks it is. He notices dissapointed and frustrated Irma and becomes dissapointed as well, because he failed to please Irma. then he comes with an idea of pulling a red box to Irma and to kneel on one leg, to make her think he is about to propose to her and she gets excited, but dissapointed again when she sees not a shiny, diamond ring inside it, but a tiny, striped candy. She becomes slightly mad at him and kicks the box with her hand. When he returns, he sees Irma leaving the bench so he eats the candy from the box and walks after her.
After some time he reaches a Valentine's fair and notices Irma standing by the claw machine games area and walks to her. She points at a cute, pink heart shaped plush with the words "Be Mine" on it. Irma really wants it and begs Bean to get it for her but Bean doesn't agree and wants to take Irma elsewhere. At the same moment, the librarian reaches them and decides to try to get Irma the plush. She really appreciates that and stares at the librarian, visibly showing she likes him. Out of jealousy, Bean decides to get the plush heart for Irma, to show the librarian he is better. The librarian does it with ease, but Bean struggles with catching the toy. The librarian manages to catch the toy and gets it out, and Bean manages to do that as well, but he didn't look which toy he has catched and accidentally got a dinosaur plush out instead of the heart, desired by Irma. Thinking he has got Irma what she wanted, he pulls her by her coat's sleeve again and when they go Irma puts the dinosaur plush in the rubbish bin.
They both stop by the Raffle of Love stall when a man shouts "Roll up, roll up, it's the raffle of love, win holiday for two!" Irma begs Bean to get a raffle ticket but he doesn't agree again. Irma becomes really rageous now and goes somewhere else in the fair. She goes up to a fortune teller stall in a tent, run by a real fortune teller called Madame Phooey, and yet again begs Bean and asks him if they can go inside. Bean is close to disagree, but notices the librarian coming to Irma with the plush heart, and finally agrees and Bean pulls Irma by her coat's sleeve once again and they both go inside quickly. Inside the tent it's extremely dark compared to the outside, there's only one small lamp. The fortune teller lady tells them to take a seat by pointing on the seats, then she holds out her hand, so one of them can pay. Bean isn't enthusiastic towards that, because he thinks it's not real fortune telling, but fake and only made for money. When Bean doesn't want to pay, Irma pokes his shoulder with her hand and he decides to give the lady one pound. She then comes out from behind a curtain and reveals herself. She takes a seat and Irma and Bean say hello to her.
The lady soon charges the magical, crystal ball and it turns all lime green. Bean doesn't care about it but Irma pokes his shoulder again to show him that it's working and there are images on the ball. They both stare at the glowing ball and firstly it shows Teddy, being fastened by a seatbelt in Mr. Bean's car. The lady charges it even more and in the next image we can see Irma and a mysterious man, drinking drinks together on a tropical island with palms and they both raise a toast, Irma with a sweet, pink drink with a tiny umbrella in it, and the man with a fizzy glass of champagne. Irma says how romantic is that and Bean looks at her smiling. The next image shows a raffle ticket with the number 77 on it. Irma takes it as a lucky sign and goes out of the tent and tells Bean to do the same thing but Bean waits a while in the tent and notices yet another image on the ball, in which he can see the librarian, eyebrow-flauting in his direction. After seeing this image he quickly decides to get out of the tent and go to Irma.
When he reaches the Raffle of Love stall he notices her, standing in front of the librarian, that is about to give her the plush heart, so he pulls Irma by her coat's sleeve again and they go closer to the stall. Bean asks Irma if she wants the ticket, she obviously agrees. Bean, seeing that the next ticket number is 76, tells the librarian to take that ticket firstly and this way Bean ends up taking the ticket with the lucky number 77. Irma then kisses him quickly on the cheek. And when Bean shows the ticket to the librarian, he doesn't notice a peg on the ground and slips over. The ticket ends up flying from the fair and Bean tries to catch it, but he fails. The ticket then flies outside of the park and lands on the ground. Bean tries to grab it but at the same time the Reliant Regal car drives on the same road and the ticket gets under the car's windshield wipers. Without any hesitation, Bean decides to drive after the Reliant Regal with his Mini. At the same time Irma still waits for Mr. Bean to come to the fair with his ticket and becomes a little bit impatient, whilst at the same time Bean manages to catch up on the Reliant Regal, perfectly on the red light. So he gets out of his Mini and tries to grab the ticket but at the same moment the light turns green and the Reliant Regal driver horns on him and the ticket flies away. When Bean tries to catch it, accidentally it lands on some skateboard kid's eyes, covering his eyesight. So Bean decides to run to catch the ticket. The kid crashes into some rubbish bags, and at the same moment the ticket gets sucked by Restaurant La Cuisine's ventilation.
At the time Irma gets more and more impatient at the fair, as it's getting late, the lucky raffle number is to be revealed soon, and Bean still isn't there. The librarian finally manages to reach her and gives her the plush heart, making her much happier. Meanwhile, Bean succeeds to climb up to the vent and he squeezes inside it and lands inside of Restaurant La Cuisine's kitchen, where many cooks are preparing meals for the restaurant's guests. When he gets up, he notices the ticket landing inside someone's lobster, and the entire meal is being covered by a metal, food cover, and just being carried by one of the waiters to someone's table.
He looks where the waiter has gone through a circular window in the door between the kitchen and the eating area and notices the ticket being "held" by the lobster. The pair sitting by the table is confused by it. Mr. Bean can't wait anymore and he runs quickly to get the ticket and also accidentally, or not, hits the waiter with his hand, and the waiter falls to the ground. Soon, he gets kicked out of the restaurant by the restaurant owner.
Knowing he has the ticket now, he decides to quickly ride to the park, hoping that he will make it on time, despite the fact it's got much darker outside. At the same time the guy that runs the Raffle of Love stall already rolls up the lucky number. The librarian hopes it is 76. When the lucky number turns out to be 77, the number of the ticket which Bean has chosen, Irma becomes saddened and depressed, being hopeless of Bean suddenly coming to say it is his number. The librarian tries to comfort her somehow.
At the time Bean drives as fast as he can to reach the fair, and on the exact moment he reaches the park the man decides to roll up an another number, and it turns out to be 76, the librarian's number. He becomes really cheerful and excited and Irma kisses him on the cheek. Bean now reaches the fair and runs as fast as he can to the stall, but it turned out he didn't get here on time, as the man has already taken the drawing machine, and there were no or just few people around.
He gets dissapointed and even more when he looks in front of him and notices both Irma and the librarian, kissing passionately on the lips under a lamppost. After them kissing, Irma doesn't even look behind, already hugging the librarian, but he decides to turn around and show the trip tickets to Bean, visibly bragging to him and laughing and a while later both Irma and the librarian walk away, leaving Bean to be heartbroken and depressed. He throws his ticket, that is now completely useless, into the bin and notices the dinosaur plush Irma has thrown here earlier and decides to take it with him. The plush makes him feel better about the situation and he takes it home.
Appearance
Irma is a middle-aged lady with dirty blonde hair that is tied into a bun at the back and dons her trademark eyeglasses, along with a pair of earrings almost at all times, while for clothes she covers her legs in tights, wears a complete cyan coloured dress with matching shoes and can sometimes be seen wearing a long overcoat with a red beanie hat with a pom pom on it.
Appearances
Mr. Bean (TV series)
Mr. Bean Animated Series
Season 1
Season 2
- Young Bean (flashbacks only)
- Dinner for Two
- Hot Date
Season 3
- The Visitor (cameo in a photo)
- Big TV
- Double Trouble
Season 4
- Home Movie
- Valentine's Bean
- All You Can Eat
- Scout Bean
- Wedding Day
- Opera Bean
- Muscle Bean
- A Round of Golf
- What a Load of Rubbish (cameo in a photo)
- Birthday Party (storyboard only, cut)
- Ice Cream
- A Magic Day Out
- Dancing Bean
Season 5
- A Dog's Life
- Birthday Bother
- Charity Bean
- Bean Encore
- Scrapper Cleans Up
- Coach Trip
- Save That Tree
- A Car for Irma
Quotes
- "Are you alright in there?" - her first words in the episode Merry Christmas, Mr Bean.
- "Merry Christmas!"
- "Oh yes, if you're having one."
- "You got a turkey on?"
- "Do you want a hand?"
Gallery
Trivia
- Despite Irma being a main character in the Mr. Bean series, she was more of a supporting character in the live action series, while as a main character in the cartoon series.
- From the original animators sketches it is revealed that Irma was intended to make a debut in the episode "Birthday Party" from Season 4 of the Animated Series. She was supposed to take place in Mr. Bean's birthday party and dance with him and with others, but the idea was later scrapped for some reason.
- In the Comic Relief sketch "Torvill & Bean", Bean is accompanied by a female companion portrayed by Sophie Thompson whose overall appearance resembles Gobb's.