Front row, left to right: Queso, Lieb, Lingo, Wei, Subah. Back row, left to right: Kikli, Blodwen, Jaadoo, Dyzio, Jargonaise.
The Lingo Show is a British Edutainment Show designed to teach young children various foreign languages. It airs on the BBC's preschool channel, CBeebies. The show revolves around Lingo, a half-ladybird and half-butterfly (according to Word of God) insect and his team of foreign bugs, as they travel around the UK to perform "Big Bug Shows" for children. The humans are live-action, but the bugs are all animated.
It was created by Nicole Seymour and the characters were designed by Kate Sullivan. It premiered on CBeebies on March 12, 2012.
Not to be confused with Lingo, a game show on GSN with no relation to this show whatsoever.
The Lingo Show contains examples of the following tropes:
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Blodwen just wears a hat, and Wei wears his trademark helmet and roller skates.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Look at the colours of those bugs!
- Animals Not to Scale: While the Bloozles and Floozles are normal-sized for bugs, every other insect character is unrealistically large. Heck, they fit into Barbie doll-sized clothes easily!
- Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Lieb wears a leotard and wristbands, but nothing on her feet.
- Big Eyes, Little Eyes: Jargonaise has a massive pair of eyes, adding cuteness factor to her design.
- Bilingual Bonus (which also doubles as Meaningful Name): The characters' names mean things in their native languages - for example, Queso's name means "cheese" referring to his love for it, and Lieb's means "sweet" referring to her personality.
- The Chinese character on Wei's helmet means "insect"
- Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Fireflies are referred to as "Floozles".
- The Cancan Song: Appeared in "Can't Can't" as Jargonaise was doing - guess what dance?
- Catchphrase: Lingo has "hop-diddly-doo" and "righty-ho-dee-ho".
- Clip Show: The "Buggy Best Three" episodes are a variation on this.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Whenever the international bugs tell Lingo what act they want to perform Lingo has such extreme ideas for the acts, like how he thought Queso could be able to lift a house with just his antennas.
- Demoted to Extra: Dyzlo, Kikli and Subah. They were playable characters in the CBeebies minisite that the show originated from, but in the series, they didn't have episodes where they got A Day in the Limelight, and their only appearances in the series is in the intro.
- A more downplayed case with Spaestro, in the CBeebies minisite, he was seen on an interactive loading screen, and appears in the ending song, but in the series, he only appears in transitions.
- Fake Interactivity
- Funny Animal: The bugs.
- Freudian Slip: Lingo, when introducing Lieb's song, says "Lieb on, I mean, lead on, Lieb!"
- Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Lingo.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Due to being an educational show that intends to teach children foreign languages, this show LIVES and BREATHES this trope. Queso has his Spanish, Jargonaise teaches French, Wei has Mandarin, and Lieb speaks German. And that's not all - we even have Blodwen, Jaadoo, Kikli, Dyzio, and Subah - who speak Welsh, Urdu, Punjabi, Polish, and Somali, respectively!
- Heli-Critter: Jargonaise flies by spinning the feathers on her head.
- No Antagonist: The biggest problems the bugs have is that they can't find objects to use in their Big Bug Shows.
- The One Who Wears Shoes: Lingo and Wei.
- Pink Means Feminine: Jargonaise is a pink bug, and she's definitely the most feminine of them all.
- Protagonist Title
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: All the bugs are this.
- Roger Rabbit Effect: The series combines live action with 2D and a toy made specifically for the series (which is animated when it takes off). The toys in some episodes are 2D on Lingo's screen, but they're actually plastic toys outside of the screen and in someone's house.
- Sleepyhead: While his personality isn't clear in the show, Dyzlo tends to fall asleep a lot in the CBeebies minisite.
- Spell My Name With An S: Jaadoo is sometimes misspelled as "Jadoo". But then again, Urdu isn't written in the Latin script.
- Strictly Formula: Each normal episode runs the same exact way - A funny moment happens in the Big Bug Show, then Lingo gets a call from his "bug buddies," live-action children who pick a bug to perform a Big Bug Show for them. Once that bug is picked, they sing a song about themselves. Then, the Big Bug Stage flies to the location wherever the "bug buddies" are. Lingo begins to announce the show, but the bug says that they need objects to use in the show. So, Lingo tells them to find the objects they need. The chosen bug goes to some place, and views 3 object possibilities to use for their Big Bug Show. They say the names of the objects in whatever language they speak, then ask the audience to choose the one that would work best for their show. This is repeated, but the bug goes to a different location and three different objects are presented. Then, the chosen bug returns to the stage and puts on a show for the kids.
- "Buggy Best Three" episodes follow a format, too - Lingo asks a certain bug to choose their three best Big Bug Shows. They count to three in their language, and showcase clips of their three best shows.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Know how you can tell which characters are male and which are female? The female characters have eyelashes.
- Theme Tune Roll Call: A variation on this occurs - Lingo says "Come on everyone, say hello!" and the foreign bugs each say "hello" in their language.
- The Klutz: Lingo tends to be this, especially in the Buggy Best Three episodes, where he'd try to imitate the acts that the foreign bugs do, and he'd usually end up failing.
- Title Drop: Many episodes have this.
- Title Theme Tune: "The Lingo Show! The Lingo Show! You'll learn new words you'll want to know!"
- Trademark Favorite Food: The foreign bugs each have one. Queso loves cheese, hence his name.
- Lieb loves to eat sausages, a food Germany is known for.
- Jaadoo loves bananas.
- Jargonaise loves cake.
- Blodwen loves potatoes.
- Wei has a trademark favorite drink - orange juice.
- The Voiceless: The Bloozles Floozles, and Spaestro.
- Variations on a Theme Song: The words of the theme tune are different in the online CBeebies game(on the game, Lingo sings "And all around the world we go") whereas the TV show has the line "We're on our way to you, so let's go!". The album version of the song also has extra lyrics and different children singing backing vocals.
