Saw a few episodes of this show and I didn't like it. A bit too offensive and stereotyped for my liking. But I do agree that the English characters are fairly stereotypical as well. Anyway, I really don't like offensive jokes and comedies. Call me old-fashioned.
The nature of written characters dictates that they are to some extent stereotypes though. And in any case, stereotypes are always based on some reality.
That's certainly true but, like I said, it went a bit too far with the stereotyping for my liking to the point where it wasn't funny. Delibrate stereotyping in comedy can be and often is very funny but it was a bit extreme in "Mind Your Language", I thought. Just not my cup of tea.
Well, fair enough. 
Interestingly, I've seen comments from people who describe themselves as 'black', 'ethnic', 'Chinese' and so on, who absolutely LOVE the show.
So takes all sorts I guess!
To each his own. Or her own, as the case may be..and is, 50% of the time!
I'm just dissapointed I made no pun in response to a correction of my spelling in a thread about a show called 'Mind Your Language'
My complaint about it was that the characters were all so one-dimentional. Same complaint I had about the U.S. sitcom All American Girl starring Margaret Cho. The U.S. sitcom Barney Miller fleshed out it's characters a little better. Exhange between Anglo-American Deitrich and Japanese-American Yamana:
"Don't you ever have the urge to go back to the land of the rising sun?"
"I was born in Omaha"
"We got a city in Nebraska by that name"
A show like MYL doesn't need complex characters. It feeds from good old fashioned jokes born from simple misunderstandings. There's Italian Max - a bit dim, with aspirations of womanising, but ultimately a good guy. Do we need to know any more about him than that?
What an odd thing to complain about, Yitzhak. Well, at least you're not complaining about it being racist. Because it wasn't. Shall I tell you why? Because there was no black character in it. Only black people should be allowed to complain about racism. NO ONE ELSE. 
Anyway I like this show a lot. The late Barry Evans was a great straight comedy actor. My favourite character's Juan the Spaniard. I like Ali, too.
I really liked it when it first came out. Agree with EMS about Juan. But looking back now it just seems dated and not so enjoyable. Not as dated as Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'em though. As a kid I loved it. Now I just can't watch it at all. I do realise that all comedy will suffer from this to a lesser or greater extent, I just think that it's accentuated when dealing with matters of race [Love Thy Neighbour also].
well, in my mind, the only big strength in this sitcom is the endless puns. I cannot help myself laughing about the stream of word plays arising from incorrect pronunciation of the words.
The guy who plays the straight teacher (no pun intended) is great, IMHO, but the one-dimensional and stereotypical characters are no big help. It picks up from the first quite bland episodes, but does not get far.
On a sidenote: if anyone wants, I can translate all what Russian seaman and captain say in first series episode nine The captain does have some accent, when speaking in Russian - very natural, as his name is David King However, the words and their structure used indicated they have had some help from a native Russian speaker.
Or maybe he learned Russian from an early age, so was more than competent?
Could have just worked for MI5 listening in on the KGB of course.
I was looking up Dino Shafeek, one of my favourite actors in IAHHM, and found this in his list of appearances. Looks promising. Possibly one of my next DVD purchases.
A great show, really misunderstood. Very popular with non-British commentators. Would be very interested to hear what you think of it!
We watched it with the kids (13 & 10 at the time) and they loved it! I remember it fondly from the first time round! And Love Thy Neighbour (which I got for crimbo a couple of years back)
Both obviously dated but VERY FUNNY
