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YMMV / Mind Your Language

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  • Awesome Music: The jaunty "Bah-bah-bah" theme tune, which even many of the series' critics admit to quite liking, will get stuck in your head and never leave it.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: "No one will be cutting off anyone's head! This isn't the Punjab, this is England! A civilized country!"
  • Fair for Its Day: The series is widely criticized today for its use of ethnic stereotypes, but at the time (late 1970s) it was looked upon positively for giving main roles to non-white actors who would otherwise have found it very hard to gain representation on TV.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Would you believe that the show is actually very popular in Malaysia? The multi-cultural and multi-language environment in the country may have something to do with it.
    • Similarly, the show is also very popular in India.
  • Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: 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.
  • Retroactive Recognition: Anyone realize Kazim was a student before leading the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword?
  • Tear Jerker: In one episode Taro explains that he doesn't like to talk about his parents because they died when he was a child. Based on his age it's reasonable to infer they died during WWII.
  • Values Dissonance:
    • Today, the series is considered to be at best embarrassingly xenophobic; at worst, blatantly racist. However, when it aired in the late 1970s, the show was appreciated for having a comparatively diverse cast with several actors of African and Asian descent.
    • The various broad stereotypes of foreign nationals, though still controversial, were considered far less so in the 1970s. The defence offered at the time to said controversy was that the English characters - Jeremy, Miss Courtney, Sid, and Gladys - embodied various unflattering stereotypes of their home country. (The actors who played the Asian characters also expressed gratitude that at least they were able to find work in the otherwise almost all-white British television landscape.)

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