Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC  from 1975 to 1979.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

To the shock of no one, Horshack joins a cult.

Episode 3.7 “The Deprogramming of Arnold Horshack”

(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on October 13th, 1977)

At the apartment, Julie thanks Gabe for not telling her any stories about his family.  Gabe responds by telling her about his Cousin Lester, who was really dumb and drove a train.

But enough jokes!  There are serious issues afoot at Buchanan High!  Horshack has not been coming to class and the Sweathogs have not seen him around.  Gabe suggests that the problem might be that the other Sweathogs are always making fun of Arnold.  However, Horshack proves Gabe wrong by showing up for class in a sarong and carrying flowers and a tambourine.

Arnold Horshack is now a follower of  the mystic Baa Baa Bee Bee and he requests to be called by his new name, Abdul Kareem Hassan.  (I assume that Horshack is meant to be a Hare Krishna but the name of Horshack’s new cult is never actually mentioned on the show.)  At first, everyone is amused but when Hassan announces that he is going to drops out of school and follow Baa Bee around the world, the Sweathogs drag him into the boy’s bathroom and attempt to deprogram him through physical intimidation.  When Gabe catches them, he tells them that this is Horshack’s decision to make.  He does this despite having earlier gotten a rather desperate visit, at the apartment, from Horshack’s mother (played by Ellen Travolta, John’s older sister who did a passable imitation of Horshack’s signature laugh.).

(Julie, while talking to Gabe about Horshacks, mentions that she joined a cult in Nebraska but was asked to leave.  Is anyone surprised?)

At school, Abdul Kareem Hassan says his farewells and he leaves.  But, a few minutes later, he returns as Arnold Horshack and says that he’s changed his mind.  And I guess that’s the end of that.

This episode is the type of thing that the first season of the show would have handled really well.  The first season was all about the Sweathogs trying to figure out what they wanted from life and Gabe encouraging them to explore what they believed and what they wanted.  If this occurred during the first season, Gabe would have seriously talked to Horshack about why he felt like he had to join a cult to find acceptance.  Unfortunately, by the time the third season rolled around, the show and the characters had gotten a bit too cartoonish for an episode like this to have any resonance beyond, “Look at Horshack carrying a tambourine!”  The whole thing is just gets to be too silly for its own good, which is quite a statement when you consider how silly Welcome Back, Kotter was on a normal basis.

I understand that cults were a big concern in the 70s.  They’re a big concern now.  Unfortunately, this episode really only worked when Gabe was talking about his Cousin Lester.