So they made them talk in a very thick Bavarian dialect, which made the whole thing absurd on a higher level.
The 70s and 80s had some great talent behind German dubs.
For instance in Fawlty Towers Manuel (the much put-upon waiter) was from Barcelona, often said in a mildly derogatory (silly foreigner) manner as in “don't mind him, he's from Barcelona”. When translated to Spanish, Manuel was renamed Paolo and his origins were moved to Naples.
Of course the joke mostly works because it lampshades bigoted cultural assumptions about race in Germany: a lot of Germans in the 1990s said "Afro-Amerikaner" when they meant Black (regardless of nationality, even Germans) because they thought it was more "politically correct" and the thought a Black person might be a native citizen never occurred to them. This has improved somewhat over the years but since the film was originally released in 1980, I doubt the cultural awareness was any better at the time.
To be clear: I'm not saying the joke is bigoted, I'm saying the joke worked because it played off bigoted assumptions.
I don't think I heard the phrase "Afrodeutsch" (Afro-German) until well into the 2000s and one of the kids in my class in the 1990s was Black. I even remember thinking he must be American because of that.
I think there was a period of general confusion in the 1980s and 1990s around what language to use as the German words "Mohr" (originally from "Mauretania") and the German equivalent of the n-word became socially unacceptable and there was a widely held belief that referencing skin color directly was also unacceptable because of a lack of understanding about the actual underlying reasons for this language change (i.e. bigotry and power structures). There's a general sense of detachment I think because this discussion is usually framed in terms of language use rather than actual oppression because Black people are rarely even acknowledged to exist.
I find it absurd, a ridiculous beat about the bush, that was never necessary growing up having friends who were 'black' and that was a fine description just like I'm 'white', what of it, and indeed closer back to (what was then at least) the out of favour/racist/not politically correct 'coloured'.
But as I said, I'm white, so it's not up to me, and if that's really what people prefer then fine - but I have the impression that it's a predominantly American (I mostly only 'hear' it online) turn of phrase, that's spilled over a bit sure, but generally not used/preferred here?
Who is "white" has changed throughout history.
Is Obama black or white?
As a father to a mixed race son, where people draw the line on whether it's "OK" for someone to self-identify or be described as black vs. white is a topic that interests me, and it's wildly inconsistent (but leaning strongly towards it taking far more white ancestry for most people to "accept" that people call themselves white than the reverse), and highly politicised, and there are absolutely no clear lines.
EDIT: I've spoken to my son about answering the inevitable "but where are you really from originally" with "Norway" for example, if he feels safe doing so (and safety is a real concern with that), since I'm Norwegian. It's just as accurate as answering Nigerian (his mother is Nigerian), which would be the answer most people asking that question would be looking for, but would hopefully make at least some people stop to think why they were asking it.
But really these things are not really logical in most cases. Ad es. blacks are blacks, but then you have "asians" who are not "east-asians" nor "south-asians", "latinos" that definitely did not originate from anywhere near the Italian peninsula, "white-irish" as different from "white-british", etc etc. In the inevitable public-authority forms, these days I'm often tempted to just tick "Mixed-other" - I'm whiter than daisies, but in my blood there are probably a dozen different "types of people" who invaded Italy through the centuries (africans, germans, etc etc).
I'm light-skinned enough to be close to ginger, for instance, and this subject has both practical, conversational and occasionally humoristic value when the subject of being outside in the sun comes up. If I'm planning any sort of trip with someone who even has southern European ancestry, not to mention Middle-Eastern or African, it's hardly an unnatural subject to show up in passing.
From that context, it seems incredibly silly that the whole subject just be taboo and remain unmentioned.
Establishing that trust can sometimes take a while, but it tends to help a lot to simply ask about which terms someone prefers etc. if unsure, because just expressing a willingness to adjust tends to be a good sign.
If you mean re 'mixed other', I think the point was just that the categories don't apply well, and 'mixed' is technically true of essentially everyone so eh why not. (I believe 'white - other' is an option though, if that's applicable.)
But it'll depend on background, age, and attitudes, and really the best approach is to just ask people if unsure, as some terms are wildly offensive to one group and not at all to another (prime example of that is that is how "oriental" is deeply offensive to many in the US, while it's not at all uncommon for people to describe themselves as oriental in the UK)
In other contexts it is more precise to say Black because Black people experience a specific form of oppression by being Black, not just non-white. The same is true for other identities (like Indigenous) that are also part of the BIPoC umbrella, of course, but this is why it is often rendered as BIPoC rather than simple PoC.
I think the latter two can also be applied to 2nd, 3rd, etc. generations, so there's no assumption about native citizen or not.
Slurs like Goombah, Kraut, Mick are also applied to later generations (according to Hollywood movies).
The implicit assumption was that because they were Black they couldn't be German. "Afrodeutsch" ("African-German") came significantly later.
In Germany (and I know the equivalent is true for many other countries) the term "German" is racialized and often used in a way that Americans use "white". Americans are far more willing to call an African or Asian American simply "American" than Germans are to call an African or Asian German simply "German". Also nobody will care more about your distant ancestors being Italian or Norwegian than they will care about them being Swabian or Bavarian, but if you are non-white, you will always be treated as a foreigner even if you have a Bavarian accent.