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.

Welcome back to Brooklyn.

Episode 4.12 “A Little Fright Music”

(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on December 2nd, 1978)

Sick and tired of Mr. Woodman insisting on ending the monthly “Parents’ night” meeting by singing the old and outdated school song, Freddie takes it upon himself to rewrite the school song.  He keeps the original melody but updates the lyrics to make it clear that Buchanan High is a “groovy alma mater.”  When recording star J. Bubba-Hampton (Sip Culler) overhears Freddie singing the song, he decides he wants to buy it and release a disco version on his next album,

The only problem is that Woodman wrote the original song and, since Freddie kept the melody, Freddie has to get Woodman to sign off on selling the new version of the song.  At first, Woodman refuses but then he realizes that he could make a lot of money off the deal.  Woodman agrees and puts on a scarf and sunglasses.  He’s a star now, after all.

For some reason, J. Bubba-Hampton agrees to bring the contracts over to the Kotter apartment so that Woodman and Freddie can sign.  However, when Bubba-Hampton mentions that Woodman actually plagiarized the song from a 1930s tune written by Irvine Russell, Woodman is stunned.  It turns out that Woodman had no idea that he did that. Woodman feels that it would be unethical to sell the song.  Freddie agrees.  J. Bubba-Hampton says, “I’ll just have to find another song for my album,” and leaves the apartment.  Julie suggests that maybe the school could have two songs.  Everyone ignores her.  Gabe then says that maybe the school could have two songs and everyone agrees.  The look of absolute hatred that Julie directed towards Gabe was one of the funniest things about this episode.

For a fourth season episode of this show, A Little Fright Music was not that bad.  For one thing, it featured Mr. Kotter from beginning to end and, watching this episode, I realized that, even if he wasn’t exactly the greatest actor in the world, Gabe Kaplan’s presence really was one of the keys to the show’s earlier success.  Kaplan was naturally funny whereas Marcia Strassman, who filled the role that Kaplan normally would have filled for many of the fourth season episodes, was not.  This episode also gave John Sylvester White and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs a chance to take center stage.  John Sylvester White’s unhinged Woodman has always been one of the best things about this show.

Horshack is not present in this episode and he’s not missed.  Unfortunately, Barbarino is also not present.  Seriously, this would have been a perfect episode for Barbarino.  Julie is also present, which means we get another chance to watch Gabe Kaplan and Marcia Strassman struggle to pretend to like each other.  Julie’s new short haircut always makes it appear as if Kotter has divorced his wife and is now sharing his apartment with a teenage boy.

Gabe gets to tell a joke at the end of this episode.  His Uncle Seymour dug up Schubert to see if he could find the Lost Symphony.  Shubert said, “Go away.  Can’t you see I’m decomposing?”