Ein Herz und eine Seele
|
|
Ein Herz und eine Seele (One Heart and One Soul) is a German sitcom that ran from 1973 until 1976. It was essentially a remake of the British sitcom Till Death Us Do Part and was written by Wolfgang Menge.
The show was extremely successful during its initial run and is still successful in reruns. Two episodes in particular, "Silvesterpunsch" (about the family's New Year's Eve party) and "Rosenmontagszug" (set during the winter carnival season) have gained such popularity that they are now shown traditionally on German TV on New Year's Eve and Mardi Gras respectively.
The undisputed star of the show is "Ekel" Alfred Tetzlaff (Heinz Schubert), a reactionary patriarch who is constantly arguing with his wife Else (whom he calls "dusselige Kuh", literally "silly cow", which, ironically, the British equivalent to Alfred was not allowed to use—he had to refer to his wife as "silly moo"), his daughter Rita and his son-in-law Michael.
Ein Herz und eine Seele makes intensive use of references to German politics and social issues of the early and mid-1970s, when the country was still separated. The son-in-law's parents are from the German Democratic Republic, resulting in another funny episode, "Besuch aus der Zone".
The show was originally broadcast in black and white and shown on the regional third channel of WDR in the North Rhine-Westphalia area. It moved to Germany's first channel, ARD, on New Year's Eve 1973 with the above-mentioned episode and from that date was produced in colour. Some of the colour episodes are actually remakes or reprises of older black-and-white episodes.
The first series is considered to consist of 20 episodes. For the second series, Elisabeth Wiedemann, extremely popular in her role as Else Tetzlaff, was replaced by Helga Feddersen and Michael, formerly played by Diether Krebs, was portrayed by Klaus Dahlen.
The audience clearly did not approve of these changes: after only four episodes of the second series, Ein Herz und eine Seele was cancelled.
External link
- A survey of the 20 episodes of the first series (http://www.nebelbank.de/einherzundeineseele/) (in German)de:Ein Herz und eine Seele