Welcome Back, Kotter is an American sitcom starring Gabe Kaplan as a high-school teacher in charge of a racially and ethnically diverse remedial education class called the "Sweathogs." Recorded in front of a live studio audience, the series aired on ABC from September 9, 1975, through May 17, 1979. It provided John Travolta with his breakthrough role.[1]
Premise
The show stars stand-up comedian and actor Gabriel "Gabe" Kaplan as the main character, Gabe Kotter, a wise-cracking teacher who returns to his alma mater, James Buchanan High School in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York, ten years after graduating to teach a remedial class of loafers known as the Sweathogs. The rigid vice principal, Michael Woodman (John Sylvester White), who was formerly Kotter's social studies teacher himself, dismisses the Sweathogs as witless hoodlums and only expects Kotter to contain them until they drop out or get expelled or arrested. As a former remedial student and a founding member of the original class of Sweathogs, Kotter befriends the current class and stimulates their potential. Kotter quickly forms a rapport with his students and they begin visiting his Bensonhurst apartment, sometimes via the fire escape window, much to the chagrin of his wife Julie (Marcia Strassman).
The Sweathogs celebrate a winning lottery ticket as Mr. Kotter looks on.
The fictional James Buchanan High is based on the Brooklyn high school that Kaplan attended in real life, New Utrecht High School,[2] which is also shown in the opening credits. Many of the show's characters were also based on people Kaplan knew during his teen years as a remedial student, several of whom were described in one of Kaplan's stand-up comic routines entitled "Holes and Mellow Rolls". "Vinnie Barbarino" was inspired by Eddie Lecarri and Ray Barbarino; "Freddie 'Boom Boom' Washington" was inspired by Freddie "Furdy" Peyton; "Juan Epstein" was partially inspired by Epstein "The Animal"; and "Arnold Horshack" was inspired by someone of the same name.[citation needed]
Gabe Kotter is a flippant but well-meaning teacher who returns to his alma mater, James Buchanan High, to teach a group of remedial students known as the Sweathogs. Kotter has a unique insight of the potential of these purportedly "unteachable" pupils, as well as the difficulties and scrutiny they encounter on a daily basis, as he was a "founder member" of the original Sweathogs. On his first day on the job, he launches into a Groucho Marx impersonation. Kotter is married to Julie throughout the series; they eventually have twin girls, Robin and Rachel. It is confirmed by Julie in the episode "Follow the Leader (part 1)" that Gabe is Jewish. During season four, Kaplan had contract issues with the executive producer, which resulted in Kotter's character appearing in only a handful of episodes. In season four, the invisible principal John Lazarus retires, and Kotter becomes the vice-principal. Though he is said to maintain some social studies training duties, most of that season's shows are filmed outside his classroom or, if inside it, Mr. Woodman is teaching. To minimize Kotter's absence, scenes were shot in either the school's hallway, the schoolyard, or the principal's waiting area. Season four ended the series.
Julie Kotter is Gabe's wife and closest friend. Though she has a sense of humor, she often wishes Gabe would take matters more seriously. She is occasionally upset with the amount of time her husband spends with his students, and she is troubled that he allows them to visit their apartment regularly; in the two-part story arc "Follow the Leader", the Sweathogs' constant intrusions lead Julie to separate briefly from Gabe and even seriously consider divorce. Originally from Nebraska, with a college degree in anthropology, Julie eventually becomes a secretary at Buchanan, and later a substitute teacher after Gabe's promotion to vice-principal. She makes several references to her "world famous tuna casserole", a common meal at the Kotter dinner table, which Gabe and the Sweathogs deem inedible.
Michael Woodman is the curmudgeonly vice-principal (and later principal) of Buchanan High. He makes no secret of his dislike for the Sweathogs, whom he considers the bottom of the social stratum at his school. He refers to non-Sweathogs as "real" students. When Kotter was a student at Buchanan, Woodman taught social studies, the same class Kotter returns to teach. His old age, and sometimes his diminutive height, are common jokes with the Sweathogs. Woodman opposes Kotter's unorthodox teaching methods, and at one point even puts Kotter in front of the school's review board in an unsuccessful attempt to have him fired. As the series progresses, Woodman begins to tolerate them marginally. In the season one episode "No More Mr. Nice Guy", Woodman is shown to be a gifted teacher, willing to wear historic costumes and role-play in front of the class during his lessons.
Vinnie Barbarino is a cocky Italian-American, the "unofficial official" leader and resident heartthrob of the Sweathogs. He has a need to be the center of attention, as seen when he admits to making it rain in the school gymnasium. In the two-episode "Follow the Leader", Barbarino quits the Sweathogs and drops out of school in anger when Freddy Washington is chosen as the "leader" of the group, though he returns as leader at the conclusion of the episode. Barbarino's prowess with women is sometimes a source of envy and more often, amusement among his classmates. On occasion, he breaks out in a song about his last name sung to the tune of "Barbara Ann". He was the first of the Sweathogs to move out on his own, when he got a job as a hospital orderly. In the first episode of the series' fourth season, he has a girlfriend, Sally. Vinnie is Catholic (often describing his mother as a saint), and, as shown in "I'm Having Their Baby", is a Star Trek fan. Little is known about Vinnie's home life, other than that his parents argue a lot ("Follow the Leader (Part 2)") and take turns beating him when in a mutual rage. His mother's name is Margie ("The Great Debate"), whom he describes in the pilot episode as "holy" and he shares a bed with his brother. The episode "Don't Come Up And See Me Sometime" implies that Vinnie is the older of the two. The character is seen less frequently in season 4, appearing in only 10 of the first 15 episodes of the season, before leaving the series entirely.
The class clown of the Sweathogs, Arnold Horshack, is completely comfortable with his oddball, if naïve, personality. Horshack was known for his unique observations and his wheezing laugh, similar to that of a hyena. (Palillo revealed on a 1995 episode of The Jenny Jones Show that it originated from the way his father breathed during the last two weeks of his life as he lay dying from lung cancer.) It is possible that academically he is the smartest Sweathog. He is the only central Sweathog character to be promoted out of a remedial academics class, but he soon returns after feeling out of place. He has an affection for acting and enjoys old movies, particularly 1930s musicals. He eventually marries Mary Johnson, a co-worker and fellow Sweathog. Although his surname sounds like a term for a brothel, he claims it is a "very old and respected name" meaning "the cattle are dying." His middle name (and his mother's maiden name) is "Dingfelder".
Freddie Washington is the hip black student known as the athletic Sweathog for his skills on the basketball court (although in the episode "Basket Case", Mr. Kotter almost beats Freddie in a one-on-one game). Washington claimed his nickname came from his habit of "pretending to playthe bass" and singing "Boom-boom-boom-boom!". His trademark phrase is, "Hi, there" (spoken with a deep voice and a broad smile) and he calls Mr. Kotter "Mister Kot-TAIR". Though often the voice of reason among his classmates, Washington nonetheless is a willing participant in the Sweathogs' various antics and pranks. He also finds success as a radio disc jockey along with another former Sweathog, Wally "The Wow" Wexler (played by George Carlin). At one point, Washington challenges Barbarino for leadership of the Sweathogs and even replaces him for a time until the group grows tired of his dictatorial style.
Washington has an older sister, who got divorced twice while living in Vermont ("The Longest Weekend"), and a brother, Leroy. In "The Great Debate", it is revealed that he has another brother, Douglas, and that his father's name is Lincoln, portrayed by R&B singer Carlton "King" Coleman. Kotter uses his own past to bond with Washington, because, in addition to being a former Sweathog he was also a former star of Buchanan's basketball team.
Epstein is a fiercely proud Puerto Rican Jew. When asked if his mother was Puerto Rican, Juan replies that his mother's maiden name was Bibbermann and that his grandfather "saw Puerto Rico from the ship as he was making his way to America and decided to settle there instead of Miami", making him one of the earliest Puerto Rican Jews. Juan is thus Puerto Rican on his father's side and Jewish on both parents' sides.
He is one of the toughest students at Buchanan High, despite his short stature. He normally walks with a tough-man strut and was voted "Most Likely to Take a Life" by his peers. In the season one episode "One of Our Sweathogs Is Missing", Epstein was said to be the sixth of ten children (when speaking on the phone to his mother, who had failed to notice that he had been missing for three days, she apparently failed to recognize his name and he had to further identify himself as "Number Six"), although he later mentions, in "I'm Having Their Baby", that his mother only gave birth eight times, implying two of them were twin births. Only four of his siblings are mentioned by name: his brothers Pedro, Irving, and Sanchez ("One of Our Sweathogs Is Missing"), establishing that some of his siblings had Jewish names and others Puerto Rican names, and a younger sister, Carmen ("A Love Story"). Epstein's toughness was downplayed later on, and he became more of a wiseguy. He was also known to have a "buddy" relationship with Principal Lazarus, as he often referred to him by his first name, Jack. On a few occasions, when Kotter did his Groucho Marx impersonation, Epstein would jump in and impersonate Chico Marx or Harpo Marx. Epstein's diminutive height, large hair, and fake excuse notes (always signed "Epstein's Mother") were running gags.
Rosie Totsie is the femme fatale purported to have put the "sweat" in Sweathog, though her reputation is largely exaggerated by the Sweathogs' word of mouth. Her promiscuity is at least in part a reaction to the strict discipline enforced by her father, the Reverend Totsie. To restore her good name, and to prove a point, she fabricates a story about one of the Sweathogs getting her pregnant. The character was a favorite among male viewers but was phased out of the series at the end of the first season when Scott was picked to co-star in the syndicated Norman Lear comedy Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.[citation needed] She reprised the role in a 1978 episode, "The Return of Hotsie Totsie", in which it was revealed that she dropped out of school because she became pregnant and had to become a stripper to support her infant child.
Judy Borden
Played by Helaine Lembeck
A recurring non-Sweathog character in the earlier seasons, Borden is a straight-A student and editor of the Buchanan Bugle, the school newspaper. She was Barbarino's tutor, and even dated him at one time. Despite her academic superiority, she can easily hold her own in a Dozens contest against any Sweathog.
Introduced as a regular character in the fourth and final season, Beau is a handsome, friendly, blond, silver-tongued southerner who transfers from New Orleans after being kicked out of several other schools. He ends up in Kotter's class. The producers sought a heartthrob who was not a direct knock-off of the "Italian Stallion" trend that was permeating Hollywood in the mid-1970s, and who would improve ratings in the South, where the show's New York setting was seen as unrelatable. They wanted to retain female viewers but avoid a Travolta clone. Beau's first reaction to the term "Sweathog" was "That sounds gross." He seems to have a way with women, as shown in later episodes. One of his running jokes involves imparting esoteric and nonsensical sayings, such as "a real man never steps on a pregnant alligator".
Other recurring characters
Vernee Watson as Verna Jean Williams, Freddie's girlfriend.
Susan Lanier as Bambi, a female addition to the Sweathogs.
Charles Fleischer as Carvelli, introduced as a student foil to the Sweathogs in Season 2.
Bob Harcum as Murray, Carvelli's loyal, and extremely dim, sidekick.
Dennis Bowen as Todd Ludlow, a nerdy academic high achiever.
Irene Arranga as Mary Johnson, later became Arnold Horshack's wife.
Melonie Haller as Angie Grabowski, introduced in Season 3 as the only official female Sweathog, but was gone by the end of the season.
Show history
Welcome Back, Kotter's first season was controversial. In Boston, the local ABC affiliate (WCVB-TV) initially refused to air the show.[3] The city was going through a tumultuous school busing program that involved widespread protests and riots, and the local affiliate felt Kotter's fictional integrated classroom would exacerbate the situation. The show became an early ratings success, however, and the affiliate relented, picking it up from its fifth episode.[citation needed]
Teachers in other cities had concerns about how Kotter would be portrayed, so producers allowed a union representative on the set to ensure the show protected the image of those in the profession. Kaplan opposed the idea, at one point asking a reporter if there was a junkman on the set of Sanford and Son to protect the reputation of junkmen.[citation needed]
Censor concerns about depiction of juvenile delinquency faded after the Sweathogs' antics proved to be silly rather than criminal. Like Kaplan, Hegyes was a fan of the Marx Brothers. Hegyes claimed that he suggested that the Sweathogs be modeled after the Marx Brothers in order to reduce tension.[4]
Ratings slipped greatly in the third season. Kaplan later attributed the decline to the age of the actors playing the Sweathogs, all then in their mid- to late-twenties, claiming that they were no longer believable as high school students. As the series entered its fourth and final season, Travolta, the youngest Sweathog, was 25—while Palillo, the oldest, would turn 30 before season's end.
Kaplan's idea to bring the show in line with the age of its cast was to have Kotter join the faculty of a community college attended by the Sweathogs;[5] however, this storyline never materialized. In order to increase viewership, the Kotters had twin girls, but this did not prove to be enough to regain the show's earlier momentum. The show introduced a female Sweathog, Angie Grabowski, played by Melonie Haller.[citation needed]
Major changes took place in the fourth and final season. Shortly before the season began, the series was moved from its successful Thursday 8:00 p.m. time slot to Monday 8:00 p.m. to make way for the impending hit series Mork & Mindy.[citation needed] Much of the writing staff turned over after season 3, and Travolta, who had already starred in box office hits such as Grease, Saturday Night Fever, and Carrie, began to focus more time on his film career. He appeared in ten episodes, earning $2,000 for each one, and he was billed as a "special guest star".[citation needed] Vinnie got a job as a hospital orderly and his own apartment and the Murphy Bed that came up and down at inopportune times became a running gag. Mr. Woodman was promoted to Principal of the school (Principal Lazarus quit to take a "less stressful" job at a high-security prison), and Kotter was promoted to Vice-Principal, purposely moving the show's focus away from Kotter's class.[citation needed] Major off-screen disputes led Kaplan to break his contract and reduce his appearances. To help fill the voids, Stephen Shortridge joined the cast as smooth-talking Southerner Beau De LaBarre, and Kotter's wife, Julie, became a school secretary and occasional fill-in teacher, despite having one-year-old twin daughters.[citation needed] Also in season 4, Della Reese was introduced as English teacher and Buchanan High talent show coordinator Mrs. Jean Tremaine.
Knowing the series was in a nosedive, producer James Komack attempted to spin-off a newly married Arnold Horshack into a new sitcom (see section below).[citation needed]
The show enjoyed ratings success during its first two seasons, spawning a host of merchandising tie-ins, including lunchboxes, dolls, trading cards, comic books, novels, and even a board game, advertised as "The 'Up Your Nose With A Rubber Hose' Game" in a commercial with a class full of Sweathog look-alikes featuring Steve Guttenberg as Barbarino and Thomas Carter as Boom Boom Washington. The Sweathogs — or at least an impressionist's version of them — even made a crossover appearance with characters from the Happy Days universe on one track (the disco-themed "Fonzarelli Slide") of a 1976 TV-promoted oldiescompilation album.
In 2010, the cast, including Gabe Kaplan, Marcia Strassman, John Travolta, Robert Hegyes, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, and Ellen Travolta were honored at the TV Land Award ceremonies. Co-star Ron Palillo was not in attendance, nor were fellow co-stars John Sylvester White (who died in 1988) and Debralee Scott (who died in 2005).
The popular theme song, "Welcome Back", written and recorded by John Sebastian, former front-man for the Lovin' Spoonful, became a No. 1 hit in the spring of 1976. The show was originally going to be called Kotter, but that was changed because of the theme song lyrics. Sebastian has said he tried to find a more general theme for the song after being unable to find any reasonable rhymes for Kotter.
Merchandising
Comic books
DC Comics published ten issues of a Welcome Back, Kotter comic book starting in 1976.[6] Following its cancellation in 1979, a Limited Collectors' Edition was issued, incorporating a four-page "On the Set" section and photographs from the show.[7]
Novels
A series of novels based on characters and dialog of the series was written by William Johnston and published by Tempo Books in the 1970s.
Action figures
Mattel produced a series of 9-inch Welcome Back, Kotter action figures in 1977. Figures produced included Barbarino, Horshack, Epstein, Washington, and Mr. Kotter.[8]
Warner Home Video released a 6-episode Television Favorites collection on February 28, 2006. Due to the success of this release, Warner released the Complete first Season on DVD in Region 1 on June 12, 2007.
On May 7, 2014, it was announced that Shout! Factory had acquired the rights to the series. Ultimately, they released Welcome Back, Kotter: The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 on August 26, 2014,[9] and have since released the second, third, and fourth seasons as individual sets.[10]
As of April 2023, the entire series is available to stream on Tubi.[11]
DVD Name
Ep #
Release Date
The Complete First Season
22
June 12, 2007
The Complete Second Season
23
January 20, 2015
The Complete Third Season
27
May 26, 2015
The Complete Fourth Season
23
August 18, 2015
The Complete Series
95
August 26, 2014
Nominations
Kotter failed to win any major awards, though it was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1976[12] after its first season; it lost to The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The series was also nominated for three technical Emmy Awards: Outstanding Achievement in Videotape Editing for a Series (to Editors Susan Jenkins and Manuel Martinez) in 1976, Outstanding Art Direction for a Comedy Series (to Art Directors Roy Christopher and James Shanahan) in 1978, and Outstanding Individual Achievement — Creative Technical Crafts (to Dick Wilson for sound effects) in 1979.[12]
Guest stars
Several noteworthy performers enjoyed guest stints on Kotter either during or prior to their widespread fame. James Woods guest starred in the first episode of Season 1 ("The Great Debate") as Alex Welles, a drama teacher who leads the school debate team ("the Turkeys") in a competition against the Sweathogs. Pat Morita appears in the 1976 episode "Career Day" as Mr. Takahashi. Comedian George Carlin was featured, as was John Astin. Other guest stars included Scott Brady, Ellen Travolta, Richard Moll, Della Reese, and Dinah Manoff who would work with John Travolta again in Grease.
Groucho Marx was set to have a brief walk-on role in one episode. He arrived on-set, but was deemed to be too sick to appear. Pictures of Marx with the cast were taken, but not released.[13][14] However, the photographs did appear on the Internet decades later.[15][16]
At least three spin-offs of Kotter were seriously considered, but only one ever became a series. The short-lived Mr. T and Tina starred Pat Morita as Taro Takahashi (Mr. T for short), a brilliant Japanese inventor whom he portrayed in one episode of Kotter. The show was not received well by critics and lasted for five episodes on ABC. There was also talk of developing a spin-off built around the Horshack character and his family, Rich Man, Poor Man; Horshack!, but it never went beyond the backdoor pilot stage, shown as an episode of Kotter. In the mid-1990s, Hegyes announced on The Jenny Jones Show that plans were in the works to create a spin-off featuring the Sweathogs, all grown up, minus Travolta's Barbarino, but the project never got off the ground and little information about it was ever made public.
In Germany, 23 episodes of Welcome Back, Kotter were shown dubbed, but under its original title – first from September 1979 until May 1980 by the ZDF, then again from April to July 1985 by Sat.1.
In the United Kingdom, 26 episodes were shown from December 1981 until July 1983 on ITV.[24]
In Australia, the show was broadcast on The Seven Network from June 1976 and rated very well for the first two seasons.
In New Zealand, the show was screened on Television New Zealand's TV ONE. As in Australia, the first two seasons rated highly.
In Italy, the show was aired by the Italian TV second channel Rai 2 in the spring of 1980. Since at the time there were only two national TV networks, the rating was high. The show was dubbed, and the title was translated in Italian into I Ragazzi del Sabato sera (Saturday Night Guys), clearly aiming to build on the success of Saturday Night Fever by presenting the show as some sort of prequel.
In Greece, the show was screened on ANT1 in the summer of 1992, on a morning slot (07:30).
Kaplan welcomed back Hegyes and Jacobs on his short-lived 1981 sitcom Lewis & Clark. Their characters joked that Kaplan seemed familiar and, being a smart guy, "should become a teacher."
In 1997, Ron Palillo, Robert Hegyes, and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs reprised their respective roles in a dream sequence in the Mr. Rhodes episode "The Welcome Back Show".
In 2012, both Ron Palillo and Robert Hegyes died.[25] Other members of the cast who have died include Marcia Strassman in 2014, John Sylvester White in 1988, and Debralee Scott in 2005. As of 2022[update], Gabe Kaplan, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs and John Travolta are the only main actors still living.
^"Yahoo TV". Tv.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on October 14, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2016.
^McAvennie, Michael (2010). "1970s". In Dolan, Hannah (ed.). DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. Dorling Kindersley. p. 171. ISBN978-0-7566-6742-9. The first issue [was] written by Elliot S! Maggin with spot-on likenesses rendered by Jack Sparling.
^Evanier, Mark (August 19, 2017). "Groucho Day". News from ME. Retrieved September 20, 2020.
^Brooks, Tim; Marsh, Earle (2007). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946-Present (Ninth ed.). Ballantine Books. pp. 1687–1688. ISBN978-0-345-49773-4.
