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, Mr. Kotter gets a student teacher!
Episode 2.9 “Hello, Ms. Chips”
(Dir by Bob LaHendro, originally aired on December 2nd, 1976)
Instead of telling a joke about a relative, Gabe starts the show by coming home from shopping with Julie. When Julie says that everyone at the store was crazy, Gabe comments that the women were all pushing and shoving and “bumping into me.”
“I’m going back tomorrow!” Gabe declares while Julie gives him a pity laugh.
At Buchanan High School, Woodman introduces Gabe to his new student teacher, Ms. Wright (Valerie Curtin).
“Ms. Wright,” Gabe says, “My mother always said I’d meet you someday.”
“Keep your sick fantasies out of this, Kotter,” Woodman replies. “Watch her carefully, you remember what happened to the last student teacher …. she still sends me ceramic wallets from the home.”
After Woodman leaves, Gabe gets to know Ms. Wright and discovers that she’s read about the Sweathogs in her textbooks. Gabe acknowledges that the classroom is famous and adds, “Some of our best teachers have passed through the windows.”
The Sweathogs make their arrival. Ms. Wright observes the way that Gabe handles getting them to read their essays on what they would do if they were president and then she steps in and tries to teach while looking through her thick lesson plan. Needless to say, the Sweathogs do not react well to that and Epstein throws a fit when Ms. Wright reads his essay (which is actually a poem) about how he would make the world a better, flower-filled place as President. Ms. Wright runs, sobbing, from the room.
Gabe tracks Ms. Wright down to the front office, where Ms. Wright is asking Mr. Woodman what it was like when he was a teacher. Woodman proceeds to sing Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen.
“Didn’t they have spankings in those days?” Ms. Wright asks.
“Yes,” Woodman replies, “but my students only spanked me once.”
The next day, Ms. Wright tries again. This time, she tires to imitate Gabe’s approach and awkwardly tells Epstein, “In your mouth with a sandwich,” when he tries to apologize her. Ms. Wright tells a series of Kotter-style jokes but her cheery delivery is all wrong. Ms. Wright suddenly announces that Gabe’s technique isn’t right for her and that she’s just going to quit.
“You can’t quit,” Freddie says, “You’re not a lousy teacher, we’re just lousy students!”
Ms. Wright learns a valuable lesson about not teaching from the book and not trying to teach like someone else but just teaching as herself. Ms. Wright says that she wants to tell the class about President Buchanan.
“That name sounds familiar,” Vinnie says.
This was not a bad episode. I appreciated that Ms. Wright had to find her own style as opposed to just blindly following Gabe’s style. Speaking of Gabe’s style, he ends the episode telling Julie about his Uncle Wilford Kotter, who was in love with an elephant.
Episode 2.10 “Horshack vs. Carvelli”
(Dir by Bob LaHendro, originally aired on December 9th, 1976)
At the apartment, Gabe calls his Uncle Herman and tells him that Julie’s going to be home in five minutes and he doesn’t have a joke to tell her. Gabe asks if anything funny has happened in Herman’s life recently. Herman tells Gabe about a guy who crossed an elephant and a beaver. Herman says that he once knew a guy who was so mean that he used to train homing pigeons and then move. Judging from the expression on Gabe’s face, Herman then proceeds to tell him something really wild.
(Julie, by the way, apparently never comes home and, therefore, does not appear in this episode.)
At school, the Silver Gloves Boxing Tournament is approaching and the Sweathogs are debating who will take on New Utrecht High’s most fearsome fighter, Carvelli (Charles Fleischer). Woodman is especially concerned because he says that, in 20 years, Buchanan has never won the tournament. When Gabe says that Bonzo Maretti won one year, Woodman replies, “Eating your opponent doesn’t count!” Woodman wants a Sweathog to bring home a trophy. Unfortunately, it appears that all of Woodman’s hopes rest on Arnold Horshack who is demanding to be the one to fight Carvelli. As Horshack puts it, he’s tired of always being the one who is pushed to the side.
It’s time for a training montage, as Gabe and Woodman teach Horshack how to throw a punch.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t go well as Horshack ends up getting knocked down by Mr. Woodman. “Maybe I should fight Carvelli!” Woodman says.
At the boxing match …. actually, I was expecting this to be one of those episodes where Horshack somehow ended up winning despite the odds but actually, he gets knocked out during the first round. But all the Sweathogs are proud of him for having the guts to enter the ring so it’s a bit of a personal victory for him. Plus, Gabe tells him a joke about his Uncle Maxie Kotter.
Yay! Horshack finally won some self-respect! Horshack was often the most cartoonish thing about this show and it’s rare that there was ever anything subtle about Ron Palillo’s performance but he deserves some credit for his work on this episode. He revealed that, beneath the weird façade, Horshack was just as vulnerable and insecure as all the rest of the Sweathogs. He didn’t win the fight but he won the audience’s heart and good for him!
Next week: Epstein is caught smoking!
