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!

This week, Mr. Woodman writes a book!

Episode 3.9 “A Novel Idea”

(Dir by Nick Havinga, originally aired on October 20th, 1977)

When his father has an attack of appendicitis, Gabe rushes to upstate New York to be with his mother.  That’s right.  Other than a brief appearance at the start and the end of this episode, Gabe Kotter is absent from this edition of Welcome Back, Kotter. 

With Gabe gone, it falls to Julie to deal with the lates dispute between the Sweathogs and Mr. Woodman.  Mr. Woodman has written a book, a Civil War romance called Swamp Rats Of Savannah.  The book’s hero is Beauregard Ravenna, the “sliver fox” who is the headmaster of the Applegate School in Georgia.  Ravenna is a dedicated educator but he has to deal with four unruly students, the Swamp Rats.  Kloberino, Warpstein, Thorshack, and Baltimore are not only terrible students but they are also responsible for the start of the Civil War when they launch an attack on Ft. Sumter.  Ravenna must defeat them while also dealing with a deserter-turned-teacher named Gaylord Teesdale and his love-starved wife, Julie Luh.

When the Sweathogs get their hands on a copy of the manuscript, they are so offended that they write a science fiction epic called Space Hogs of Buchania, in which the heroic Space Hogs battle a tyrant known as Demento.  Woodman is as offended by their novel as they were by his.  Finally, at a summit held at the Kotter apartment and with Julie overseeing, Woodman and the Sweathogs agree to tone down their depictions of each other.

I was looking forward to this episode because the idea of Mr. Woodman writing a novel about the Sweathogs seemed like a promising concept.  Mr, Woodman has always been the most consistently funny character on the show and John Sylvester White’s wonderfully unhinged performance has always been a highlight of Welcome back, Kotter.  And indeed, there are some funny moments in this episode and John Sylvester White is responsible for almost all of them.  That said, the overall episode just fell flat.  The absence of Gabe Kaplan is really felt, if just because it requires Julie to suddenly go from being annoyed with the Sweathogs to instead being their enthusiastic ally.  It doesn’t feel right for Julie’s character and Marcia Strassman doesn’t seem to be totally comfortable with stepping into the role that was typically played by Gabae Kaplan.  I kept waiting for Julie to kick everyone out of the apartment.  Instead, she read everyone’s books.  That’s not the Julie we know!  As well, I was really hoping the show would go into even more detail about what was in each book, perhaps even visualizing a few of the scenes.  Instead, it was just a collection of scenes of people looking at pages and then saying, “Look what he wrote here!”  For an idea that has so much potential, the execution was a bit lacking.

As with so many of Welcome Back, Kotter‘s later episodes, this one that you watch and try not to think about how much better it all would have been handled during the first season.