History Series / MindYourLanguage

In the first and third series, Jeremy has ten students, five from Europe and five from Asia. The European students include macho Italian chef Giovanni Cupello (George Camiller), who becomes the students' designated leader and spokesman; nymphomaniac French au pair Danielle Favre (Françoise Pascal), who regularly flirts with Jeremy (who is too embarrassed to reciprocate); humourless German au pair Anna Schmidt (Jacki Harding), who tries to take the class seriously; Spanish bartender Juan Cervantes (Ricardo Montez), who sports hilarious '70s sideburns and initially speaks very little English; and Greek shipping company employee Maximillian Papandrious (Kevork Malikyan), whose rivalry with Giovanni turns to friendship in later episodes. The Asian students include Indian housewife Jameela Ranjha (Jamila Massey), who is among the few students to make real progress in her English skills; Indian Sikh Ranjeet Singh (Albert Moses), who works for the London Underground; sporadically employed Pakistani Muslim Ali Nadim (Dino Shafeek), who constantly fights with Ranjeet; Chinese embassy secretary Chung Su-Lee (Pik-Sen Lim), a fanatical Communist; and Japanese electronics executive Taro Nagazumi (Robert Lee). The second series sees the addition of two more students: nymphomaniac Swedish au pair Ingrid Svenson (Anna Bergman[[note]] Daughter of renowned Swedish director Creator/IngmarBergman by his second wife, Ellen Lundström.[[/note]]), who competes with Danielle for Jeremy's affection, and Hungarian Zoltán Szabó (Gabor Vernon), who has a strange tendency to burst into song.

* FinalSeasonCasting: Many characters left before the fourth series (among other things, Dino Shafeek (Ali) died of a heart attack in 1984), leaving Giovanni, Juan, Anna, and Ranjeet as the only survivors of the original class (though Ingrid was brought back from season two).

In the first episode, Jeremy Brown (Barry Evans) is hired as a teacher of English as a foreign language at a college of adult education run by strict principal Miss Courtney (Zara Nutley). Other college employees include Cockney caretaker Sid (Creator/TommyGodfrey), and gossip-loving tea lady Gladys (Iris Sadler). The other episodes focus on Jeremy's hit-and-miss attempts to help his internationally diverse class of students navigate the mazes of the English language and British culture.

* HilarityEnsues: Several episodes centred around the characters' brushes with the law through misunderstandings of English. In one case, the ''entire class'' managed to get themselves arrested separately while trying to complete assignments from Jeremy (Giovanni and Danielle interrupted a live television broadcast, Su-Lee and Taro got in a heated argument with an orator at Speaker's Corner, etc.).

In the first episode, Jeremy Brown (Barry Evans) is hired as a teacher of English as a foreign language at a college of adult education run by strict principal Miss Courtney (Zara Nutley). Other college employees include Cockney caretaker Sid (Tommy Godfrey), and gossip-loving tea lady Gladys (Iris Sadler). The other episodes focus on Jeremy's hit-and-miss attempts to help his internationally diverse class of students navigate the mazes of the English language and British culture.

* ChickMagnet: Many females, both staff and students, finds the young shy [[HotTeacher Mr Brown]] very attractive and adorable. Even Miss Courtney on a few occasions.

* {{Balloonacy}}: An episode have Brown and his students going on a fundraising campaign. Brown and Jamila notably sells balloons in Hyde Park, until Jamila had to give her balloons to Brown while she gives change to a customer. Given that Brown already had his hands full, he then floats comically off the ground.

* CultureEqualsCostume: An episode have the class - being foreigners - dressing in their local costumes for a musical performance. Most of them gets stereotypical outfits, like the Greek Maximilian wearing peplos, the Japanese Taro in a kimono-esque gear and the Pakistani Ali showing up in a turban and Arabic-looking outfit, but to everyone's bewilderment the Chinese Su-Li wears a Chinese Red Guard uniform instead of a ''qipao''.

* BabysittingEpisode: One episode has Danielle bringing a baby to class - not her baby, but the child of the family she works as ''au pair'', since her employers are overseas for a while. HilarityEnsues as usual when Courtney mistakes the baby for Danielle's.

* BabysittingEpisode: One episode have Danielle bringing a baby to class. It's not her baby, rather it's the child of the family she works as ''au pair'', since her employers are overseas for a while. HilarityEnsues as usual when Courtney mistakened the baby to be Danielle's.

* CultureEqualsCostume: An episode have the class - being foreigners - dressing in their local costumes for a musical performance. Most of them gets stereotypical outfits, like the Greek Maximilian wearing peplos and the Pakistani Ali showing up in a turban and Arabic-looking outfit, but to everyone's bewilderment the Chinese Su-Li wears a Chinese Red Guard uniform instead of a ''qipao''.

-->'''Police officer''': Get these crackpots out of here and promise to never bring them back even if they've commited murder!

''Mind Your Language'' was a politically incorrect BritCom that ran for four series, three on London Weekend Television between 1977 and 1979 and one on Granada in 1986. The show was about a hapless class of students learning English as a [[FunWithForeignLanguages foreign language]]. It has been much criticized for its xenophobic outlook and heavy use of ethnic stereotypes, but at the time it was appreciated that the show [[FairForItsDay gave actors of colour a bigger presence on TV.]] Hilariously, it was outsourced abroad to great acclaim. To this day it is still re-run on Comedy Central in India and elsewhere.

* ThemeTuneCameo: During the school's talent night, Jeremy (dressed in a Union Jack coat) leads the students (dressed in the stereotypical costumes of their various home countries), as "Jeremy Brown and his United Nations", in a chorus of the series' theme tune.

* NationalStereotypes: Like you wouldn't believe. The German student is rigid and humourless, the French student is a would-be seductress, the Italian student is a hot-blooded skirt-chaser, the Chinese student is a devout Maoist, the Japanese student is a tech savvy camera salesman, the Punjabi and Pakistani students are constantly at each other's throats... and the English characters are sexually repressed and socially awkward.

Any resemblance between this and Leo Rosten's phenomenally popular "Mr. K*A*P*L*A*N" short stories[[note]]originally run in ''The New Yorker'' in the 1930s, they featured a night school where immigrants from every corner of the globe, each with their own unique personality and way of speaking, learn English and civics in preparation for citizenship. {{Malapropers}} and FunWithForeignLanguages abound[[/note]] is purely coincidental.

* CatchPhrase: Most of the characters had at least one, usually a {{Malapropism}} of some sort.

* MexicansLoveSpeedyGonzales: In spite of the show being ''incredibly'' racist in showing Hindi stereotypes, it's still re-run on Comedy Central in India to this day.