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Tintin says this to the Captain as they are leaving the bus.
Does anyone know the significance of this line?

It seems unusual.
My best guess is that Haddock, being a regular person of swear language and 'different' expressions is simply being warned by Tintin to behave and act friendly whilst in Picaros costume?
By him cursing etc this would definitely put him out of character of being one the Jolly Follies he was trying to impersonate.

Do you think Tintin needed to express this firmly to the Captain? Did he say this comment based on their previous adventures, where Haddock has flown off the handle and let his temper get the better of him?? Simply to get him 100% ready for the task at hand?

It just seems slightly strange considering:

1. He now sober and can't touch the drink
2. He's been pretty well behaved his adventure from the point where he got hit on the head with the whiskey bottle
3. He tells the Picaros not to use their guns during the coup - this shows he's alert and focused for the mission.

I guess Tintin is wary of him based on their previous adventures, but I still don't understand his comment.

Would be great to here your interpretations on this...

Rod

Tintin was probably being on the safe side. He may have spotted Colonel Alvarez on the balcony with General Tapioca and the guards at the gate of the Presidential palace may have included some who were involved in the guarding of Tintin and his friends at the villa or the pyramid.

Since they and Alvarez were involved in the attempted ambush staged in the course of their escape from the pyramid, Tintin may have feared that Haddock would take his anger out on them before the coup was actually underway. Sober or not, he does tend to lose his temper at the drop of a hat: look at his outburts at the beginning of the story even when his allergy to whisky is already taking effect.

On a technical side I'd say the translators did a rather poor job.

In the original French, Tintin states: "Attention, capitaine, jouons bien notre role!" which means "Careful, Captain, let's play our parts right!" so he is being cautious for both of them, and less patronising.

I don't think the translators did a poor job at all. They essentially mean the same.

I think the main purpose of this exchange of dialogue may simply be to let the readers see that those two Follies are Tintin and Haddock. Whilst this isn't essential, since obviously we could deduce they're part of the group anyway, and we see them removing their masks soon enough, maybe Hergé just wanted to make it absolutely clear for the reader to follow Tintin and Haddock through the story (especially with the story being originally serialised episodically in Tintin Magazine.

So the actual words spoken may be of secondary importance to this.

That said, I agree with mct16 that the translation slightly changes the tone and meaning of Tintin's speech to Haddock from the original French, making him more bossy. I'm all for the translators' decision to avoid word-for-word translations ("let's play our parts right" does sound a bit clunky) but maybe "remember we're follies" would have been more faithful to Tintin's original warning.

Generally, in whichever language version, I'd guess that Tintin's concern isn't so much that Haddock might suddenly lose his temper, but that he/they might fail to join in the dancing with sufficient enthusiasm to fool the guards. Behaving convincingly like one of Jolyon Wagg's dance troupe might not come very naturally to Haddock or Tintin, especially in this tense situation.

Well, the captain needs every reminder to use caution, especially since they don't want to be recognized by Alvarez, Sponsz or even Tapioca, who probably knows all about them.

I think you're being over-critical here. Surely "watch it Captain, remember you're a folly" makes more sense than "watch it Captain, remember we're follies", since Tintin is reminding the Captain to be jolly. It's rather nit-picky, since it would make sense either way. And as has been pointed out, being jolly doesn't come very naturally to the Captain, so there is some logic to it. Personally, I'm all for avoiding literal translations and I think the translators did a fine job throughout the books making it understandable and natural in English, whilst retaining the overall meaning.

Anyhow, my reading of the "Watch it Captain..." bit is simply to keep the reader informed as to what is going to happen next. When you're reading Picaros for the first time you don't know what the plan is, since Tintin whispered his idea to Alcazar. As we learn, the plan was to win the guards trust by being 'jolly', chloroform them and then storm the Presidential Palace. Therefore, the whole point of the "Watch it Captain..." line is really to help you understand what is going on, rather than to be patronising to the Captain.

Tintin spoke those words out of experience of his previous adventures with haddock. There have been many such incidents in the previous adventures where haddock out of his foolishness landed everyone in trouble. Like in "explorers on the moon", where haddock leaves the rocket merely out of boredom and frustration, and thus had caused tension to everyone.