History Radio / TheMenFromTheMinistry

** A few episodes, instead of Sir Gregory, feature a similar character named Sir Hector Gunn, [[BerserkButton who hates people making jokes about his name]].

* TemporarySubstitute: A few episodes, instead of Sir Gregory, feature a similar character named Sir Hector Gunn, [[BerserkButton who hates people making jokes about his name]].

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The ChristmasEpisode "The Christmas Spirit" ends this way; the episode features One upsetting Santa and the main duo traveling to Christmas Land and escaping eventually with a red carpet. The episode ends with [[AllJustADream Two awakening One from a sleep,]] but the carpet has appeared in Two's room...

* PandaingToTheAudience: Subverted in "Claws". The male panda Coco that's being shipped into the London Zoo is described by the zookeeper as being absolutely adorable, but once it gets accidentally transported to the General Assistance Department thanks to a misunderstanding, [[BearsAreBadNews it proceeds to completely wreck the place]] and causes all sorts of trouble.

* HarsherinHindsight: In the episode "Horse Play", a doll bought for Mildred is described by Lamb as looking like "A cross between Sir Jimmy Savile and Mrs Thatcher"

-->'''Mr. Lennox-Brown''' (''Who has just heard the whole thing from a very angry Sir Gregory''): A consignment of tinned solder ants in syrup.

* TheRemnant: Hilariously [[InvertedTrope inverted]] in "Something About a Soldier": General Assistance Department finds out that the demobilization order of Burgenhead Light Infantry was accidentally lost under the file cabinet in 1945, and that 20+ years later the troops, located deep in Welsh wilderness and having their communications cut off, are still under the belief that the Second World War is going on and that a German invasion might be imminent. [[spoiler:When the Bavarian Birdwatching Society arrives from the west at their stations the Major of the unit immediately assumes that rest of Britain has been overrun and tries to assault the German tourists.]]

* AccentAdaptation: In the finnish version American characters speak mostly in Helsinki slang, due to it's "modern" sound and use of foreign loanwords creating a nice substitute for an American accent. The other native English accents from the original show such as Scottish or Irish are not adapted.

* AccidentalHero: During the arrest of a couple of shop-owners in Hackney for ridiculously small irregularities in their products that go against the norms set out by the government, General Assistance Department accidentally blows the cover of two Soviet spies, allowing [=MI5=] to catch them.

* AdaptationalEarlyAppearance: Since the Finnish version ended up adapting the episodes completely out of order thanks to its StatusQuoIsGod nature, Daphne Bentwater (who debuted in Series 9), Lord Stilton (who debuted in series 6) and Mr. Crawley/Mr. Wilkins (who debuted in Series 9 and 12, respectively) all ended up appearing within the first 30~ episodes.

* AndImTheQueenOfSheba: As General Assistance Department is trying to clear room in Hyde Park for a statue of a deceased industrialist, a hassle with a crazy speaker erupts and gets the attention of a park guard. When Lennox-Brown claims that they are working for the Department of the Environment, the guard responds with quipping that he's the archbishop of Manchester, which [[SarcasmBlind Lamb]] naturally assumes to be true.

* AwfulWeddedLife: Sir Gregory ''does not'' like lady Pitkin at all and tries to avoid her as much as possible, and the feeling is mostly mutual from her side.
* BadBoss[=/=]MeanBoss: Sir Gregory tends to be a rather huge JerkAss to One and Two and often hits them on his anger.

* BavarianFireDrill: Hamilton-Jones pulls this off when he attempts to halt the redecoration of the Ministry that's endangering the pigeon-nest at the window ledge. He has April call the Traffic Director of Scotland Yard and claims to be the "Duke of Bridlington" from the Office of State Occasions. He then claims that the Sultan of Yuwait is planning on a state visit tomorrow which includes a trip to the House of Commons and that the Director must have ''obviously'' heard about it unless he was lazy at his job. Traffic Director, being the slacker that all public servants in the show are, naturally swallows the claim and HJ manages to get Scotland Yard to halt all traffic near Whitehall for a couple of days, allowing the pigeon chicks time to learn how to fly.

* BeleagueredBureaucrat: Mildred becomes one when she's promoted from secretary to a civil servant in "I Want My Mummy". As an acting junior executive, she doesn't have immunity yet and everyone else dumps their work on her, and because of the workload [[spoiler:she ends up mixing the British Museum's Egypt exhibition and Mr. Crawley's order for traffic warden uniforms together, as well as accidentally sending the exhibition's mummy to a hotel in Paris.]]

* BitingTheHandHumor: The episode "Not on your Telly" spends a few bits making fun of the BBC and its inner-workings, with the staff being incompetent enough not to realize that [[spoiler:they've been given wrong documents and accidentally raising the tv license to 850£/month.]]

* ChristmasEpisode: There were three, Series 1's "The Magic Carpet" ([[MissingEpisode lost]] but fortunately re-recorded in Series 14 as "The Christmas Spirit"), a special episode "A Present For Norman" (that is completely lost) aired between the first two series and Series 3's "The Post Office Pantomine".

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: After Lamb scolds Mildred over the typos on a recent memo, this exchange occurs:

* ComicallySmallBribe: When discussing how the Postman refused to give them back the letter they accidentally send to the wrong person, Two credits the Postman's honesty, as he threw One's five pence bribe to the gutter.
* CommunityThreateningConstruction: At least two episodes cover this (a village in Sussex making way for an airport in "Customs of the Country" and a Scottish village making way for a hydroelectric dam in "A sense of power"). On both occasions, the villagers vehemently resist...until they discover the compensation payments they'd receive.

** Hamilton-Jones's/Lennox-Brown's character varies a bit between episodes. For example, his fondness of Lamb can range from [[HeteroSexualLifePartners panicking after mistaking Lamb's antics for a suicide attempt]], to being onboard with Sir Gregory's plan to let Lamb perform a rocket-launching ceremony after he received death-threats towards whomever was performing it. In addition, while they are usually said to be HappilyMarried to their respective wives, sometimes they are more-than-happy to flirt with other women.

* DubSpeciesChange: Finnish version of "Seal of Office" changes the episode's circus seal into a circus bear, since the plot requires it to be confused with something else via a pun. In the original General Assistance Department wants a seal for the envelope they are about to send into NATO headquarters, whereas in the Finnish version they're waiting for a collection letter for their delayed payment on the shipment (collection letter is "karhukirje" in Finnish, literally meaning "bear letter").

* FalseReassurance: In the Finnish version of "Ban the Wotsit", One and Two are being interviewed on the TV after the soviets manage to "replicate" the super-weapon Wotsit (which was really a [[AchievementsInIgnorance pram full of junk mistaken for a weapon]]). The interviewer asks Lamb if he thinks the soviet weapon is as powerful as the original, which he answers that he is sure it is just as powerful, no more or less.

* GoneHorriblyRight: When Lamb is being depressed by the utter boredom of his life, Mildred and Lennox-Brown decide to make him take dancing lessons so that he will find more joy in his life. He does find dancing very enjoyable, so much that he plans to quit his job in the Ministry and become a professional dancer.

** When planning on giving a petition about the poor quality of Ministry's bathrooms Mr. Crawley says that they have to stand up to Sir Gregory. After talking with him about it:

* InsultToRocks: In one of the episodes written exclusively for YLE has Mildred's boyfriend comparing Lamb's mind to a sieve. Mildred protests, as something actually sometimes stays in a sieve.

* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Sir Gregory's one in and out. While he may be pleased and friendly in some episodes, it's only because of some outside event giving him a good mood, and makes no secret that he utterly loathes One and Two for their incompetence and laziness.

** Mrs. Bradby makes consistently terrible food. At one point Lamb describes having shepherds pie and rhubarb custard... on the same plate.

* LoopholeAbuse: This ends up being what saves the day in "Rebel of Regents Park". While yes, the gardener does legally own the island and has every right to establish his own country inside its borders, the ''lake'' the island is on belongs to England. If the water were to rise enough to cover the island, the latter would become part of the lake.

* MistakenForSpies: During a trip to New York two poorly-worded notes One and Two left to their hotel and office back in London leave FBI and the British Government into thinking the two are spies planning on defecting to USSR.

* MyGodYouAreSerious: When Sir Gregory is first reluctantly informed by Lennox-Brown that the surplus of 75 pence [[spoiler:[[EpicFail has somehow ballooned into 800 000 pounds]]]], he immediately starts laughing and gongratulates LB on his amazing sense of humour. It's only after Lennox-Brown gives him the receipt that he realises that it's true, and the revelation causes him to have an episode.
* NakedPeopleAreFunny: Episode "Bare Necessities" has One and Two stripping down in order to negotiate with the owner of a Nudist colony about buying the land, but since they do it in the night they keep going into wrong houses in the dark.

* NoodleIncident: Never-seen bunglings and events of General Assistance Department and other offices are often referenced.
* NothingIsTheSameAnymore: Very [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]]; The Finnish dub went out of its way and wrote in a brief plotline that permanently replaces Sir Gregory with Sir Clive, and the change in leadership is openly discussed InUniverse (unlike the quite sudden change from Hamilton-Jones to Lennox-Brown). That said, his replacement is still pretty much the same character with minor changes, so while there is a change to the status quo it doesn't affect that much.

* OneDialogueTwoConversations: During an episode of tv program ''Series/{{Panorama}}'' dedicated entirely to the Civil Service Sir Gregory is being interviewed on Ministry's Hospitality budgets. However, due to a mistake caused by the General Assistance Department the Interviewer Robin Gay thinks he is interviewing Sir Gregory about sex in the civil service. The result is as hilarious as you think:

* PoorMansPorn: It is sometimes mentioned that Mr. Lamb apparently has a habit of going up and down the Underground escalators while staring at the underwear advertisments on the walls.

* RealLifeWritesThePlot: [[SnapBack Not that the series had any real overarching storylines]], but the Finnish dub has a brief plotline that permanently replaced Sir Gregory with Sir Clive, due to Sir Gregory's voice actor Yrjö Järvinen retiring. This is especially noticeable as the change in leadership is openly aknowledged InUniverse with characters still referencing Sir Gregory and comparing him with his replacement, while the earlier change from [[DiedDuringProduction Hamilton-Jones]] to [[RememberTheNewGuy Lennox-Brown]] wasn't addressed at all.

* RudelyHangingUp: Sir Gregory ends most of his phone calls into the General Assistance Department by hanging up on One whenever he's halfway through his sentence.

* SecretPetPlot: In several episodes, the staff of the General Assistance Department are forced to keep a pet in their office, including a hamster, a dog and a parrot. Since Sir Gregory despises all animals great amount of hijinks ensue trying to hide their existence: this includes Mr. Lamb pretending to have a cold when the parrot starts talking in the file cabinet, and being forced to [[EatingPetFood eat the animals' food]] in order to fool Sir Gregory into thinking it's just his breakfeast.

** "The Man who Made it Rain" has this exchange:

** In "A Motley Crew" General Assistance Department is set to inspect an oil rig. As Sir Gregory tells, all oil rigs have names, there's Penelope rig, there's Veronica rig, and GDA is set to go on [[Creator/DianaRigg Diana rig]].

** Hamilton-Jones and Lennox-Brown are practically the same character with just different names and voice actors.

* TheTelevisionTalksBack: When listening to a horse race from the radio all of a sudden the speaker informs that horse My Wotsit (which everyone thought was going to lose) starts to moving up. Lamb says that they said that My Wotsit didn't have a chance, which the speaker replies that he was wrong in his earlier statement about My Wotsit's chances.

** Mistaking that the General Assistance Department is the head of British Intelligence, two Soviet spies use their new experimental truth serum on Mr. Lamb in order to get information. Hidden on sugar, nobody realizes what causes them to blurt out the truth, until Sir Gregory starts showing the side-effects (hysterical laughter), after which they offer him more.

** Mildred has a habit of saying "righty-ho" in the place of "right away", which annoys One greatly. In one episode, Sir Gregory says it as well.

* WeatherControlMachine: One is the center of the episode "The Man Who Made it Rain". Somewhat of a deconstruction, since rapidly and suddenly changing the climate at a small area [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome ends up having much larger consequences elsewhere]], with the problems growing worse and worse each time the machine is used to fix the previous problems.

* CommunityThreateningConstruction: At least two episodes cover this (a village in Sussex making way for an airport in "Plane Madness" and a Scottish village making way for a hydroelectric dam in "A sense of power"). On both occasions, the villagers vehemently resist...until they discover the compensation payments they'd receive.

* DubInducedPlotHole: Apparently the translators forgot the AdaptationSpeciesChange while translating a CallBack in a later episode; because of this, a character references the time the duo had a seal in their office, something that never happened during the Finnish series.

* AdaptationSpeciesChange: Finnish version of "Seal of Office" changes the episode's circus seal into a circus bear, since the plot requires it to be confused with something else via a pun. In the original General Assistance Department wants a seal for the envelope they are about to send into NATO headquarters, whereas in the Finnish version they're waiting for a collection letter for their delayed payment on the shipment (collection letter is "karhukirje" in Finnish, literally meaning "bear letter").

-->'''Mr. Lennox-Brown''' (''Who has just heard the whole thing from a very angry Sir Gregory''): "A consignment of tinned solder ants in syrup.