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 can be purchased on Prime.

The Welcome Back Kotter death march continues.

Things have really been going downhill since Howard Golden replaced Sebastian Leone.

Episode 4.7 “Barbarino’s Boo-Boo”

(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on October 21st, 1978)

Mr. Woodman’s going into the hospital to have a bunion removed.  Unfortunately, it’s the same hospital the employs Vinnie Barbarino.  The head nurses gives Barbarino a lot of instructions.  “I’m so confused!” Barbarino says.  The audiences goes wild.  Barbarino wheels Mr. Woodman into an elevator but then get distracted by a Spanish woman (played by Jeannie Linero, who also played Lucy Mancini in The Godfather) looking for the maternity ward.  “Do you speak Italian?” Barbarino asks.  The elevator doors close.  Woodman is missing!  For some reason, the other Sweathogs — including Beau — show up at the hospital and start wandering around, helping Barbarino look for Woodman.  Eventually, Gabe and Julie show up.  Gabe Kaplan and Marcia Strassman stand next to each other but refuse to look at each other.  The hatred is palpable.

I watched this episode and I said to myself, “I paid two bucks for this?”

Seriously, I am really annoyed that Tubi took Welcome Back, Kotter off of its service.  Admittedly, it’s not a big deal, having to pay two bucks for the few remaining episodes that are left to review.  I can more than afford it.  It’s not so much cost as much as it’s just the idea of spending any amount of money to watch something this bad.  I had read that Welcome Back, Kotter really declined during the fourth season.  Apparently, Gabe Kaplan was no longer getting along with the show’s producers.  The Sweathogs were all being played by actors who were way too old to pass for high school students.  (In this episode, even Travolta looked way too old to be playing a teenager.)  Marcia Strassman was reportedly miserable and didn’t even want to be in the same room as Kaplan.  The ratings were going downhill.  The show’s biggest draw, John Travolta, only agreed to appear in a handful of episodes.  It’s understandable the Season 4 would see a decline in quality but nothing could have prepared for me for just how bad this episode was.

John Travolta is usually the show’s saving grace but even in this episode, he seems bored and more than a little annoyed with having to take a break from Hollywood stardom to play Vinnie Barbarino.  The studio audience goes crazy when Travolta enters a room and they love his “I’m so confused!” but Travolta himself seems like he’d rather be anywhere but there.  The same is true of the other Sweathogs, all of whom clearly seem to be ready to move on to other projects.  Out of the cast, only John Sylvester White really seems to be trying to give a good performance in this episode but Woodman disappears fairly early on.  The other big problem is that the hospital setting just isn’t that funny.  The Sweathogs wandering through the hospital and making life difficult for the patients is not funny.  Beau accidentally breaking a man’s nose (and yes, that does happen) is not funny.  Perhaps during the show’s first two seasons, when everyone was really into it, this episode could have been funny.  But, with everyone just going through the motions, it’s just annoying.

Oh well, this show will be over soon.  Only 16 more episodes to go!