Vienna, 1957: Head waiters Gustav (Paul Hörbiger) and Franz (Hans Moser) are working for the stinted Cafétier Panigl and are close friiends despite of their different characters. Franz is happily married and a good family father, Gustav, a relaxed charmer, is living a calm single life. Overnight both of them become jobless, because Panigl decided to sell his Café which was not successful anymore. Right in this moment, Franz' brother is sending 20.000 Dollar from USA. Money, he once peculated and now wants to pay back.. Gustav and Franz are buying half of the Café for each from the unexpected money. One half they develop as the modern Musicbox-Espresso «Pinguin», the other half as a traditional old style Vienna Café . Misunderstandings between guests and generations are inevitable and stretch the long term friendship of the two waiters.

Only a short time left until Max Telligan's diary is finished. Hollywood is already interested in the book's film rights. US producer Terry Wilde makes the successful British author a lucrative offer. But shortly after the negotiations, the American is found dead at the airport and a fierce battle for the diary begins. Telligan's wife Harriet and daughter Marsha also feel the effects. Terrorists, the CIA and Scotland Yard suddenly take an interest in the book. But Telligan's beautiful secretary Liz Ferber defies all threats and saves the manuscript from shady characters and brutal intruders. Will she uncover the secret of the book?

Kathrin, Sylvio, and Pierre are music students in Paris. Due to their financial difficulties, the bailiff Fogar is even forced to seize their musical instruments. However, he allows them to continue practicing with them in his warehouse. There, the trio meets the composer Duval, who is also struggling financially.

Martha and Helene Weiß - one a devout nun in a Swabian convent, the other a convinced atheist and mother. Two unequal sisters who almost only argue with each other. Martha's faith in particular is always a red rag for the younger and wilder Helene. But then Helene is involved in a car accident with her daughter and husband. However, when she wakes up in hospital and learns that her husband and child are dead, she feels no grief. She suffers from retrograde amnesia. In other words, she can still remember Pippi Longstocking, for example, but not her own family. Now it is Martha, of all people, who brings her to the convent and gives her support. But can she really trust this stranger?

Old Karl Knesebeck has long been head waiter and rules his waiters with an iron fist at the hotel. When the business passes into the hands of the heirs after the owner's death, he's in a difficult position. The unscrupulous Alwin makes advances toward Niddy, the owner's daughter, whose well-being Knesebeck watches over like a father. Alwin demotes the old man to toilet attendant – a tragedy that Knesebeck tries to salvage, especially since Niddy is about to marry Alwin and another man would actually be better for her...

In order to renovate the damaged church on the border between the hostile villages of Oberriesling and Unterriesling, the residents set off together in a coach to faraway Hamburg under the leadership of the Häberles and Rossbauers. There, they want to win a brass band competition with a highly lucrative prize. Unfortunately, Pastor Schäuble has drunk away all the donations. There are already plenty of arguments on the way north and the Hamburg mentality is not compatible with the Swabian one.

Heinrich Gruber, a public prosecutor as he stands, and the travel journalist Tom Gruber have little in common in life. The two gentlemen in their 60s are all the more astonished when they get to know each other at the opening of a will - as the husbands of the deceased. Sophia, who had a car accident, led a double life that was both secret and happy for decades. While the esoteric Tom would like to get to know his rival in order to understand his beloved wife even better, Heinrich turns completely stubborn in his pain.