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.

Buchanan High is in chaos!  Only one man can save the day but he’s not around anymore.

Episode 4.18 “The Sweat Smell of Success”

(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on March 3rd, 1979)

Where is Mr. Kotter!?

I mean, don’t get me wrong.  I know why Gabe Kaplan was hardly ever on the show during the fourth season.  He was annoyed that the network refused to allow the Sweathogs to graduate from Buchanan High, despite the fact that the actors playing the Sweathogs were all in their late 20s and early 30s.  He was not happy about working with Marcia Strassman.  And he was shooting a movie for a good deal of the fourth season.  Kaplan felt that he moved on from the series and as such, he allowed his character to become vice principal and kept his appearances on  the show to a minimum,

But, in the narrative of the show, where is Mr. Kotter?  Usually, someone will mention that he’s out of town or busy with school business.  In this episode, he isn’t even mentioned.  It’s kind of disturbing how he’s vanished and no one seems to care.  The Sweathogs need his guidance and this episode, as dumb as it was, features a plot that feels like it would have been perfect for Mr. Kotter’s corny jokes and gentle mentoring.  Even more importantly …. who is the song welcoming back?  Kotter’s gone!  He’s not around to be welcomed back!

As for this week’s episodes, it appears that the show’s writers finally remembered that, at the start of the season, each of the Sweathogs was assigned a job around the school.  Freddie and Horshack run the school store.  Meanwhile, Epstein is in charge of the audio visual department.  But he sucks at his job so Woodman reassigns him to the school paper.  Horshack’s girlfriend, Mary Johnson, edits and writes the paper and is very earnest in her efforts to make the paper something worth reading.  That’s quite a chance from the Mary who tried to kill herself just a few episodes ago.

Anyway, Epstein turns the paper into a tabloid.  He suggests that Julie is having an affair with Woodman.  (“She’s not my type!”  Woodman declares, “Too tall!”)  He writes about Freddie Washington wore diapers until he was six months old.  Epstein describes Horshack as being a diva.  Epstein says that Beau is a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He says….

WAIT!  WHAT!?

Okay, one of these stories is far worse than the others.  Washington did wear diapers when he was a baby and Horshack is a diva and Julie probably is cheating on Gabe.  But Beau is a member of the Klan?  Where did this come from?  “I’m going to need a police escort to go home tonight,” Beau says while the audience laughs.

Seriously, don’t just toss around Klan accusations, folks.  It’s just common sense.

Anyway, Epstein’s friends get mad at him so Epstein quits the paper after publishing an expose of himself on the front page.  He returns to the audio visual department.  He still sucks at his job and I guess Mary is back to having to write, edit, and publish the entire newspaper by herself.  Is this a happy ending?

Well, at least Beau didn’t get killed.

Next week, it’s time for the school talent show!  Wow, Mr. Kotter would have loved that.  RIP.