Clockwise, starting at the bottom: "Ekel Alfred", his daughter Rita, his wife Else a.k.a. "dusselige Kuh", his son-in-law Michael.
Ein Herz und eine Seele (One Heart and One Soul) is a West German TV series, produced from 1973 to 1976. Being a Foreign Remake of the Brit Com Till Death Us Do Part (meaning yes, this is technically the German All in the Family), it is notable for bringing the Sitcom format to Germany.
The series deals with the everyday life of the reactionary and stubborn working class man Alfred Tetzlaff, his wife Else, his daughter Rita and his leftist son-in-law Michael.
Like Stromberg three decades later, this series is one of the very few German sitcom remakes that are actually good. This fondly remembered series can often be seen rerun in German tv to this day. Especially the episodes "Silvesterpunsch" and "Rosenmontagszug" are always broadcasted at the holidays during which their plots take place (New Year's Eve and the final day of Carnival, respectively). More recently, the episode "Besuch aus der Ostzone", in which Michael's parents from the "East Zone" visit the Tetzlaffs, seems to have been repurposed as the holiday episode for the Day of German Unity.
Ein Herz und eine Seele contains the following tropes:
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Else and Alfred dancing tango at the end of the New Year's Eve episode.
- Bulungi: Alfred implies "Uranda-Burundi", his example for a culturally utterly underdeveloped country, to be this.
- Christmas Episode: Well, New Year's Eve episode, but close enough.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Alfred likes to give us hilarious "insights" into the then-contemporary politics.
- Cordon Bleugh Chef: Alfred.
He even puts food that landed on the floor back into the pot. And he makes punch by pouring rum into a pot and heating it. - Crazy Cultural Comparison: Inevitable when Michael's East German parents visit. Alfred thinks that people from Commie Land have no concept of personal property, because they don't even exclusively own their living room furniture.
- Cultural Posturing: While it should be no surprise that Alfred is prone to this, there is a hilarious dialogue between Else and Michael's East German mother, in which the latter does this unconsciously by assuming that every important German landmark is in the eastern part of the country.
- Deadpan Snarker: Michael (Frankly, if Alfred Tetzlaff were your father-in-law, you would probably become one too...)
- Dirty Commies: The rather conservative Alfred considers actual communists as well as everyone else who is leftist to be this. He calls Michael (who is only a Social Democrat) things like "backyard Komsomol".
- The Ditz: Else; Alfred's (not very nice) nickname for her (dusselige Kuh) could be even translated as ditzy cow.
- She thinks that Rosa Luxemburg was a princess from Luxemburg's royal family.
- She believes there are pyramids in Turkey.
- Dumb Blonde: Technically speaking, Else.
- Dysfunctional Family: Although to be fair, Else, Rita and Michael get along quite well...
- Foreign Remake: Of the Brit Com Till Death Us Do Part.
- The Ghost: The Tetzlaff's neighbour, Mrs. Suhrbier.
- Grandma's Recipe: Alfred's New Year's punch.
- Secret Ingredient: Alfred says the recipe is secret. Then he mentions that a key ingredient is rum that his grandfather has made. Eventually inverted when he spills the beans: The rum is the only ingredient.
- Granola Girl: Michael is a Granola Boy, at least in the eyes of Alfred, because Michael is a member of the SPD (the mainstream social-democratic party in Germany) and happens to originate from the GDR.
- Insistent Terminology:
- Alfred only refers to the GDR as the Ostzone ("East Zone"), thereby implying that he sees East Germany still just as Soviet-occupied territory instead of a legitimate state. (A hot issue in pre-reunified Germany.)
- Alfred's New Year's punch is a "Punsch", no matter how often Else calls it a "Bowle". (Doesn't help that there's only one word for both in English.)
- Malaproper: Alfred talking about "Uranda-Burundi". He mixes up Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
- The Napoleon: Alfred; lampshaded in the Carnival episode, when he wears a Napoleon costume.
- National Anthem: In one episode, Alfred sings the Horst-Wessel-Lied. As to be expected from him, he starts with the banned first verse (the actual German national anthem only consists of the third verse). Michael taunts him by claiming that it's for both West and East Germany because it mentions Germany twice in the first line.
- National Stereotypes: Alfred seems to believe in many of them, mostly the negative ones.
- Averted in case of Greece, because they were a dictatorship back in the 70's, thus earning Alfred's praise because "they get things done" and there aren't any "sozis" there. Now talk about Hilarious in Hindsight...
- Averted in case of Greece, because they were a dictatorship back in the 70's, thus earning Alfred's praise because "they get things done" and there aren't any "sozis" there. Now talk about
- New Year Has Come: "Silvesterpunsch". Also, just like Dinner for One, this episode has been shown on TV every New Year's Eve for decades now.
- Precision F-Strike: Alfred can drop these while at the same time insisting that his own spoken language is perfectly squeaky-clean.
- Standardized Sitcom Housing: Not quite. While the living room is at the right, and the kitchen at the left side of the stage, the front door is at the end of a corridor between those two rooms. The tv-set is in the rear left corner of the living room.
- Studio Audience: Can be seen at the beginning and the end of each episode. (By the way, the people of The '70s were apparently quite fond of bright colours...)
- Tastes Like Feet: According to Alfred, pizza tastes like a wool blanket that has been peed on.
