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!

Merry Christmas from the Kotters!

Episode 3.15 “A Sweathog Christmas Special”

(Dir by Mel Stuart, originally aired on December 15th, 1977)

The Kotters are trimming the tree and getting ready to celebrate Christmas.  (Before anyone points out the obvious, it’s mentioned that they also celebrated Hannukah.)  Suddenly, the Sweathogs show up.  Shouldn’t the Sweathogs be with their own families?  Vinnie’s mother is a saint.  Epstein has dozens of sisters.  Horshack’s family needs him!  Freddie …. well, we’ve never really met Freddie’s family but still, he has one.  Then suddenly, Woodman shows up, dressed as Santa Claus!  Doesn’t Woodman have a family?  Actually, he probably doesn’t.

Anyway, all of this leads to everyone sharing their favorite memories and …. IT’S A FLASHBACK EPISODE!

Hey, who am I to complain?  Flashback episodes are very easy to review, because nothing happens.  And the clips are from episodes that have already been reviewed.  It’s Easter weekend.  I’m happy to have something easy to deal with.

That said, I will point out one interesting thing about this episode.  Even though it aired halfway through the third season, most of the flashbacks were from the first season.  We revisited the Sweathogs having a rumble in the school courtyard.  We once again witnessed Vinnie searching the Kotter refrigerator and complaining about the lack of food.  “Hi there,” Freddie said about a dozen times.  Julie tried to get Gabe to eat her “famous tuna casserole.”  “Up your nose with a rubber hose,” Barbarino said several times.  Woodman cheerfully predicted the end of the world several times and it was interesting to revisit his descent into madness.  We spent a lot of time revisiting the first season but there were no flashbacks to Julie finding out she was pregnant or Julie giving birth while the Sweathogs sat in the hospital waiting room.  Seeing as how this was the twins’s first holiday, you would think Gabe and Julie would bring them up at some point.

It’s as if the show itself was acknowledging just how much better the first season was than the seasons that followed.  Watching those season one flashbacks, it was a bit jarring to be reminded of the fact that this show started out as the fairly realistic story of a dedicated teacher who refused to give up on his remedial students.  The first season was full of broad comedy but it also had a lot of heart and sincerity, which are two qualities that have been missing from much of the third season.  It was nice to be reminded of the fact that the show was not always as cartoonish as it later became.

Anyway, on that note — Merry Christmas!

Oh!  For those keeping track, Gabe’s pre-show joke was about his Uncle Arnold.  Arnold got a hearing aid.  It didn’t work well.