denise galik | Through the Shattered Lens

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, season 2 ends as the new art teacher tempts Gabe to have an affair with someone who actually likes his jokes!

Episode 2.23 “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Gabe Now”

(Dir by Bob LaHendro, originally aired on March 3rd, 1977)

The second season finale opens with Gabe telling Julie a joke about his cousin Mark, who went back to the old neighborhood and dropped in on the old shoe repairman. The shoe repairman saw that Mark was carrying a sales ticket from several years ago and he said, “Your shoes will be ready next Tuesday!” Julie laughed politely.

The second season finale closes with Gabe telling Julie a really long joke about the time his Aunt Mabel went to see a psychiatrist on Park Avenue and was basically led back to the outside of the building because she didn’t make enough money to see a Park Avenue doctor. Again, Julie laughed politely.

From the very first episode, Gabe telling Julie a joke about his family has been one of this show’s mainstays. Sometimes, Julie smiles in response. Sometimes, she gives up a pity laugh or two. And sometimes, she seems downright annoyed with Gabe for wasting her time. Gabe’s jokes are obviously very important to him. (And, of course, they served to remind the audience that, when he wasn’t starring on a sitcom, Gabe Kaplan was a stand-up comedian.) However, Julie never really seems to be too enthusiastic about them. I imagine that a lot of this was due to the fact that Gabe Kaplan and Marcia Strassman did not get along behind-the-scenes but, for the show, it really does make you wonder just how much longer Gabe and Julie are going to be married. I mean, by this point, it’s obvious that the reason Gabe spends so much time with the Sweathogs is so he won’t have to deal with Julie. And Julie’s bad cooking is obviously a result of her secret desire to poison her husband. This marriage just feels doomed.

The Sweathogs are certainly concerned about that. When Epstein overhears the new art teacher, Paula Holtzgang (Denise Galick), telling Gabe that she has fallen in love with him, he is stunned. He is even more shocked when he sees Gabe and Holtzgang kissing. Of course, what Epstein doesn’t realize is that Paula was the one kissing Gabe and not the other way around. Epstein tells the Sweathogs what he witnessed. Horshack panics, wondering who will get custody of the Sweathogs if the Kotters split up. Barbarino tries to solve the problem by showing off some of his dance moves as Paula leaves the school but, to his shock, she ignores him.

For his part, Gabe tells Julie about what happened and he says that he told Paula he wasn’t interested. Julie demands to know if Paula is prettier than her. Gabe says that Paula is a “different type” than Julie ….. which, yeah, that was not the right answer. Fortunately, Gabe does not tell Julie that Paula kissed him. Instead, the Sweathogs show up at the apartment and, attempting to save the marriage, tell Julie that she shouldn’t worry about the kiss.

With Julie on the verge of demanding a divorce, Gabe kicks the Sweathogs out of the apartment and he then assures Julie that he loves her and he can’t wait for their child to be born. He even has a name picked out: “Farrah Fawcett Kotter.”

The next day, Gabe enters his classroom to find Paula waiting for him. Paula says that she no longer finds Gabe attractive and leaves.

And that’s it for the second season!

Wow, what a strange episode to end on. I mean, I guess it was good because it confirmed that Gabe and Julie will not be getting a divorce even though it’s obvious that they hate each other. And this episode also reinforced how much the Sweathogs loved their teacher. John Travolta got to show off his dance moves and that’s always a good thing. But, overall, this episode was broad even by the standards of Welcome Back Kotter, with the Sweathogs coming across as being a bit to cartoonish for their own good. The Sweathogs have always been a bit over the top but, in the past, they were still at least believable as tough but sometimes vulnerable Brooklyn teens. But, for the past few episodes, they’ve become more like comic book characters than real people.

And yes, there was a Welcome Back, Kotter comic book:

Anyway, that’s it for the second season! Next week …. season 3 begins! Will the Sweathogs ever graduate?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0rtiHjUP0w

Some people really hate clowns.

Myself, I really hate ventriloquist’s dummies.

Seriously, those little wooden things totally freak me out. You know how some of you feel about the painted smile on the clowns ‘face? Well, that’s how I feel whenever I see the big eyes of a ventriloquist dummy or that mouth with the fake teeth. And don’t even get me started on those tiny little legs that some of them have! AGCK!

I mention this because there is a ventriloquist’s dummy in the 1980 film, Humanoids From The Deep. There’s really no reason for it to be in the film but suddenly, out of nowhere, there it is. It belongs to a teenager named Billy who, when we first see him, is relaxing in a tent on the beach, trying to get his girlfriend to undress for him and the dummy. Of course, they’re promptly interrupted by a seaweed-covered monster, who rips open the tent, kills Billy, and chases after his girlfriend. The whole time, the dummy watches with a somewhat quizzical expression on his face. It’s a strange scene.

Now, I’ve done some research and I’ve discovered that Billy was played by David Strassman, who was (and still is) a professional ventriloquist and his dummy was named …. I do not kid …. Chuck Wood. So, the whole tent scene was kind of a celebrity cameo. Roger Corman, who produced the film, said, “You know what? This movie has blood, nudity, killer fish-men, and rampant misogyny but it’s still missing something! How about that ventriloquist that I saw on the Tonight Show last night!?”

Anyway, Humanoids From The Deep is basically about what happens when you try to mutate salmon. You end up with a bunch of pervy fish monsters swarming the beach and trying to make like human/fish babies. You end up with a lot of dead teens and unplanned pregnancies. You also end up with the local redneck fisherman (led by Vic Morrow) blaming the local Native Americans, accusing them of killing all of the dogs in town. Jim Hill (Doug McClure) and his wife, Carol (Cindy Weintraub), try to keep the peace but their efforts are continually tripped up by the fact that almost everyone in town is an idiot.

For instance, despite the fact that there’s been a countless number of murders and rapes and that they’ve all been committed a group of monsters that nobody knows how to fight, the town still decides to hold their annual festival on the pier. Of course, as soon as the obnoxious DJ starts broadcasting, the humanoids from the deep show up and basically, the entire festival goes to Hell. And here’s the thing. The film itself is ugly and mean-spirited and misogynistic but the attack on the festival is totally and completely brilliant. I mean, it’s one of the greatest monster sieges of all time, largely because the monsters are apparently unstoppable and that humans are so obnoxious that you don’t mind seeing them all die. I mean, if nothing else, the monster deserve some credit for taking out that DJ.

It all leads to a “surprise” ending, which isn’t particularly surprising but which is so batshit insane that it somehow seems appropriate.

Humanoids From The Deep is an incredibly icky movie, one that has some effective scare scenes but which is way too misogynistic to really be much fun. (Roger Corman hired Barbara Peeters to direct the film but reportedly brought in a male director to film the movie’s more explicit scenes.) Oh well. At least the ventriloquist died.