Pál Horváth

A political conspiracy is brewing in an unnamed Latin American country. Everything is in play: blackmail, bribery, political assassinations, newspaper slander. The operation, code-named "Centaur", is conceived in Washington.

In modern Hungary, con artist Bender Oszkár and his motley crew - Barangó and a band of small-time schemers - embark on a series of outrageous scams to track down an “illegal” millionaire and seize ten million for themselves. As they exploit every trick in the book - fake charities, crooked roulette tables, forged documents - their madcap pursuit of easy riches exposes the absurdities and corruptions of contemporary life, with Bender’s fate hanging on whether his “great maneuver” will pay off or blow up in his face.

March 15, 1848; the revolution breaks out in the town of Pest. Yet at café Pilvax, in among he revolutionary youth, there is the informer of the imperial court as well. Hearing the news of the attack led by Jellasics, the inhabitants of the villages pour into the national army, and Hajdú Gyurka also escapes from his landlord. Petőfi is there at the camp of the revolutionaries, raising them to enthusiasm with his poetry.

Daddy Kárász, the stakhanovist worker, complains in a television interview about the fact that his family, consisting of many members, cannot get a home on their own. Kéri, the chairman of the local authority, promises to help him on the condition that if he does not, they may move in to his villa at elegant Pasarét. Nothing happens, therefore the Kárász family takes Kéri by his word. From this time on, tumultuous scenes and frequent quarrels take place in the villa between the two families.

The family consists of Géza, the father, a comical and inept figure, his wife Paula who actually dominates family affairs, pubertal daughter Kriszta and 12-year-old son Aladár, a child prodigy. The cat Maffia and a dog, Blöki accompany the family. Dr. Máris, their cynical neighbour, is regularly and unvoluntarily involved in disasters surrounding the family.

Every night Aladár visits a different inhabited planet using an inflatable interstellar cosmic ship with his talking dog Blöki.