Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 3.22 “What Goes Up”

Posted on May 18, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, Freddie gets hooked on pills!

Episode 3.22 “What Goes Up”

(Dir by Jeff Bleckner, originally aired on February 9th, 1978)

At the new, big, how-does-he-afford-that-on-a-teacher’s-salary apartment, Gabe tries to avoid taking out the trash by telling Julie a joke about his Uncle George. Julia tells Gabe to shut up and take out the damn trash.

Meanwhile, at school, Freddie has a problem. After injuring his knee while playing basketball, Freddie is given a prescription for pain killers. But the pain killers leave him feeling groggy so he also starts taking pills to give him energy. The other Sweathogs are concerned. Freddie insists that he’s just taking vitamins. Horshack insists that Freddie would never lie to him. If Freddie says that the pills that he’s buying in the bathroom and carrying around in his shoe are harmless vitamins than Freddie is telling the truth!

Woodman, however, is concerned. He tells Kotter that Freddie entered the cafeteria, took off his shoes, and said, “Ho ho ho, I’m the Jolly Black Giant.” “Is he on the dope!?” Woodman demands to know.

Epstein and Barbarino decide that the best way to handle this problem is to act like they’re on drugs as well so that Freddie can see how dumb he looks. Epstein tries to act spacey. Vinnie walks around hunched over and repeating, “Give me drugs …. give me drugs …. give me drugs….” Freddie doesn’t buy it for a second but then …. what’s going on with Horshack!? Horshack explains that he took some of Freddie’s special vitamins and then he tries to jump out of the classroom window!

(What the Hell was in those pills? I pretty much take the same thing for my ADHD and I have never been tempted to jump out a window.)

That’s all it takes for Freddie to realize that it’s time to stop taking the pills. Gabe encourages him to flush them down the school’s toilet and Freddie agrees to do while the studio audience watches in reverent silence.

Back at the apartment, Gabe tells Julie a joke about his Uncle Luther. Julie does not care.

It’s hard to know where to begin with this episode. On the one hand, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs was often underused by the show so it’s always nice when he gets a chance to show off the fact that he was one of the better actors on the show. That said, the show’s portrayal of drug use was so cartoonish that it ultimately kind of made being a speed freak look kind of fun. If nothing else, this show left me wondering how a bunch of teenagers in the late 70s could be so naive about drugs.

Of course, if Barbarino had been the one who nearly died, I imagine the audience would have been more upset. If Epstein had gotten hooked due to Freddie’s lies, it could have led to some drama. But Horshack? Eh, who cares? When the show first started, Ron Pallilo was often given an opportunity to show that there was some hidden depths underneath Horshack’s eccentricity. But, by the time the third season rolled around, Horshack had become such a cartoonish character that it’s impossible to take anything involving him seriously.

To give credit where credit is due, John Travolta made me laugh with his delivery of “Give me drugs …. give me drugs….” Travolta appeared to be having a lot of fun in this episode, perhaps because he knew he wouldn’t be on the show much longer.

Anyway, for someone who couldn’t go an hour without popping a pill, Freddie got over his addiction pretty quickly. That’s good because next week, Vinnie is going to have to deal with the death of one of his teachers and Freddie’s going to have to be there for him. As for Horshack, this episode ends with him being taken to the school nurse but I assume he’ll eventually make a full recovery as as well. It takes more than pills to keep the Sweathogs down.

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 3.21 “There’s No Business: Part 2”

Posted on May 11, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Gabe is finally happy so, of course, Julie is pissed off about it.

Episode 3.21 “There’s No Business: Part 2”

(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on February 2nd, 1978)

This week, Gabe’s comedy career continues!

The Sweathogs are hurt when Gabe doesn’t even come by the school to say goodbye to them before their substitute teacher is brought in. Julie is upset that Gabe agrees to do a muti-week tour without even asking her about it first. (Then again, one gets the feeling that if Gabe had turned down the tour, Julie would find an excuse to get mad about that as well. At this point, I’m just waiting for Julie to run off with Epstein but Marcia Strassman had more chemistry with Robert Hegyes than she ever did with Gabe Kaplan.)

At first, the only person who is happy about any of this is Mr. Woodman. Without Gabe around, the Sweathogs are running wild and Woodman finally has a reason to give everyone detention. “It’s Woodman’s Golden Reign of Terror!” Woodman declares. But then the Sweathogs, due to being sad over being abandoned by Gabe, become listless and Woodman is left with nothing to do.

“We need you back, Kotter!” Woodman tells Gabe just before Gabe goes out on stage to perform.

Gabe agrees. Gabe bombs on stage so badly that his show business career comes to an end. Gabe returns to teaching. “Did you bomb on purpose?” Woodman asks when he sees Gabe in the school. Gabe doesn’t reply but we all know the answer.

The problem is that Gabe “bombing,” occurs off-screen and we only hear about it second-hand. It’s hard not to feel a bit cheated because the idea of Gabe giving an intentionally bad performance sounds like it would have been a lot more fun to watch than sitting through yet another scene of Julie giving Gabe the death glare while Gabe looks like a deer in the headlights.

On the plus side, this episode did feature some good Sweathog moments. John Travolta, who hasn’t really gotten a lot to do in the latter half of the third season, explains that the best way to deal with someone leaving is to pretend that they’re dead so you don’t have to worry about them anymore. All of the Sweatogs dress up to visit Gabe before he performs and all of the cheap suits provide a nice visual moment. The Sweatogs may not have the money for expensive suits but they still want to look their best when they see Gabe. They respect their teacher, even if he is thinking of abandoning them,

In the end, this entire two-part episode was a bit of an anti-climax. Because the show would cease to exist if Gabe actually did go on tour and we’re not even done with the third season yet, we all know that Gabe is going to eventually return to the Sweathogs. And considering that Gabe seemed a lot happier as a comedian than as a teacher, it’s kind of hard not to feel bad for the guy. He’s stuck with Arnold Horshack! Your dreams were your ticket out but now your dreams are your prison. Welcome back indeed.

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 3.20 “There’s No Business: Part One”

Posted on May 4, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Gabe finally realizes that there’s more to life than teaching!

Episode 3.20 “There’s No Business: Part One”

(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on January 26th, 1978)

After Vinnie attempts and fails to be a hit at the Comedy Connection’s open mic night, the Sweathogs decide that Gabe should give it a shot. According to the Sweathogs, the audience at the Comedy Connection loves it when people get on stage and tell really old jokes. Gabe admits that he’s thought about doing stand-up before. He decides to give it a shot.

And you know who is really happy about that? Mr. Woodman. Mr. Woodman can’t wait to heckle Gabe. Woodman explains that he’s a master heckler. He’s been heckling people his entire life. “Ever hear of Shecky Rubinstein?” Woodman asks. No, Gabe replies. That’s because Woodman heckled him until he quit show business.

The first night that Gabe performs, Woodman gets many opportunities to heckle. While Woodman, the Sweathogs, and Julie sit in the audience, Gabe struggles through a routine about his aunts and uncles. The audience is not amused. Woodman laughs but only at the fact that no one likes Gabe. As dispirited Gabe retreats to his dressing room, where he tells Julie that he’s going to give up on comedy.

That’s when agent Peter Charnoff (Sam Weisman) enters the room and tells Gabe that he’s funny. It doesn’t matter that Gabe bombed because “there’s some crazy old man out there heckling anyone.” Peter tells Gabe that he should talk about his students in his act.

The Sweathogs are surprisingly cool with the idea of Gabe making fun of them. The next week, Gabe again takes the stage and the audience loves his jokes, especially the ones about how Freddie always says “Hi there,” and Epstein forges his own notes. Gabe is a hit! And, with Peter’s encouragement, he announces that he’s stepping away from teaching so that he can be a stand-up comedian. The Sweathogs and Julie are stunned!

And run the end credits!

Hey, Gabe quit and apparently, he’s abandoning his wife and children. I guess the show’s over now. Thanks for reading, everyone! I wasn’t expecting things to end this abruptly but overall, I enjoyed….

Oh wait. This is a two-parter and this is just the end of part one. So, maybe the series isn’t over. We’ll find out next week, I guess!

As for this episode, it made sense that Gabe would eventually become a stand-up comedian. I’m a bit surprised it took him this long. I’m not really sure that audiences would actually go crazy over the rather anodyne jokes that Gabe told about his students but whatever. It’s television. (In Gabe Kaplan’s actual stand-up act, Arnold Horshack was named Arnold Horseshit. Obviously, that wasn’t going to happen on network television in 1978.) The highlight, as usual, was Woodman’s unhinged delight in being a jerk. Mr. Woodman is a true treasure.

We’ll see how Gabe’s new career progresses next week!

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back Kotter 3.19 “Epstein’s Term Paper”

Posted on April 27, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, it’s term paper time!

Episode 3.19 “Epstein’s Term Paper”

(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on January 19th,1978)

It’s term paper time!

Freddie Washington’s term paper is on the Dust Bowl, which he turns in despite the fact that, as he explains it, “Dust killed my grandma.”

Vinnie’s term paper is on the Irish Potato Famine. Vinnie thinks that the potato famine had something to do with no one in Ireland being able to eat French fries.

Arnold Horshack’s paper is on Joseph Stalin and the Purges, despite the fact that Horshack doesn’t know who Stalin was.

As Gabe tells Julie when she stops by his classroom for lunch, he’s really impressed with all the term papers. In fact, he is concerned because he’s too impressed. The Sweathogs have never been A-students so why are they now turning in perfect term papers? Gabe, however, is looking forward to reading Epstein’s term paper on FDR. Eleven years ago, Gabe turned in a term paper on FDR in which he described FDR as being a “white knight.”

Julie takes one look at Epstein’s term paper and mentions that Epstein used the exact same phrase.

Yes, you guessed it. The Sweathogs bought a bunch of old test papers from Carvelli (Charles Fleischer) and attempted to pass them off their own. Only Angie wrote her own term paper. She got a B minus, which she is happy about. Vinnie, Horshack, Freddie, and Epstein all gets F’s. They’re not happy about it because they spent five dollars apiece for those papers.

“I could have written it myself,” Vinnie says, “and gotten an F for free!”

Gabe, however, tells the Sweathogs that he’ll give them one final chance to write new term papers. Gabe explains that just because he turned in a term paper on FDR, that doesn’t mean that he wrote it. So I guess the lesson here is that Gabe cheated and now he’s a teacher so cheating isn’t the end of the world.

Considering the subject matter and the fact that Gabe usually tries to encourage the Sweathogs to not take shortcuts, this was a surprisingly slight episode. One gets the feeling that, if this story had been used during the first season, Gabe would have been a lot more upset about the fake term papers and he would have encouraged the Sweathogs to believe in themselves and their abilities. However, in the third season, everything was treated as a big joke. Gabe no longer seems that concerned about the Sweathogs realizing that they’re capable of being more than just Sweathogs. Watching this episode, I couldn’t help but think about how the Sweathogs lost their edge halfway through the second season. They used to be believable as delinquents, albeit goofy ones. By the time the third season began, they had all been reduced to a series of catch phrases and gimmicks. Robert Hegyes had some funny moments in this episode but it’s still hard not miss the old Epstein, the one who voted most likely to take a life.

As for this episode’s opening and closing jokes, Gabe told Mr. Woodman about his Uncle Murrow the biologist. Woodman was not amused. Later, Gabe tried to tell Julie about his Uncle Joe, just for Julie to shout out the punchline before he finished. Gabe was not amused.

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 3.18 “Angie”

Posted on April 20, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Gabe gets a new student.

Episode 3.18 “Angie”

(Dir by Alan Myerson, originally aired on January 12th, 1978)

Gabe tells Julie a joke about his Uncle Zoltan. It’s not really that good of a joke but Julie fake laughs as if it’s the funniest thing that she’s ever heard. I notice that this has been happening a lot over the course of Welcome Back, Kotter‘s third season. By most reports, Gabe Kaplan and Marcia Strassman could not stand each other off-camera. That’s especially obvious whenever Strassman deliberately overreacts to one of Kaplan’s jokes. It’s easy to imagine that Strassman was secretly thinking of throwing something at Kaplan whenever she laughed.

At school, Mr. Woodman interrupts Gabe’s class to introduce everyone to a new student, Angie Grabowski (Melonie Haller). Epstein, Washington, Horshack, and Barbarino are very excited to see their new classmate, leading to Woodman ordering them to shut up.

Angie announces that she is thrilled to be in Gabe’s class because her dream has always been to become a Sweathog. Really? I mean, Barbarino’s cute but would anyone really dream of hanging out with Horshack? Of course, it doesn’t matter what Angie wants. Washington and Epstein explain that women are not allowed to become Sweathogs. That kind of contradicts everything that we’ve previously learned about the Sweathogs but whatever.

Determined to prove that she can be a Sweathog, Angie riggs the spinklers in Woodman’s office. Woodman ends up soaked but he also announces that he’s going to expel all of the Sweathogs. Angie demands that he expel her as well. (Angie seems to be a little self-destructive.)

Well, so much for the Sweathogs. I guess the show is over. Thanks for reading these reviews and….

Oh wait! Angie figures out that the fire alarm is broken because it didn’t go off when the sprinklers started up. The fire alarm is Woodman’s responsibility! The Sweathogs — including Angie — dress up as firemen and demonstrate to Woodman that the alarm doesn’t work. Somehow, this leads to Woodman not expelling the Sweathogs and apparently just forgetting about the prank with the sprinklers. It also leads to Angie becoming a Sweathog.

Later, Gabe tells Woodman a joke about Ebenezer Kotter, the cheapest of all his uncles. It takes Woodman a while to figure out the joke but then he laughs in his wonderfully unhinges way. Gabe Kaplan actually had more chemistry with John Sylvester White than he did with Marica Strassman.

This episode attempted to rejuvenate the show by introducing a new Sweathog. That makes sense. A lot of shows have tried to reverse declining ratings by introducing a new character. The problem is that the show doesn’t need a new Sweathog as much as it just needs for the old Sweathogs to return to being the realistic (if flamboyant) troublemakers that they were during the first season. In her first appearance, Melonie Haller delivers her lines in a flat and emotionless manner, which adds to the feeling that Angie might not be quite sane. Seriously, I’m worried about Horshack. It’s obvious that he has a crush on Angie but Angie seems likely to turn into a stalker.

Run, Horshack, run!

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 3.17 “Meet Your New Teacher: Batteries Not Included”

Posted on April 13, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, a computer tries to take over Gabe’s class. I wonder how Barbarino will react….

Okay, everyone, it’s Barbarino time!

Episode 3.17 “Meet Your New Teacher: Batteries Not Included”

(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on January 5th, 1978)

Barbarino’s not in this episode.

That may seem like an strange detail with which to lead off this review but, as far as the third season has been concerned, John Travolta’s performance as Barbarino has been one of the few consistently good things about Welcome Back, Kotter. I’m going to guess that Travolta was absent from shooting because of the success of Saturday Night Fever. Maybe he was off filming Grease. That’s all understandable but still, the show really suffers when he’s not around. Of the Sweathogs, he was the one who usually avoided turning into a cartoon. In his way, he was the anchor of the group. Plus, by this point, he was the only one who still looked young enough to be in high school.

Fortunately, John Sylvester White is in this episode. If Travolta played an important role in keeping the show grounded, White’s unhinged performance as Woodman did an equally good job of keeping the show funny. White could make even the simplest of lines hilarious by virtue of the incredible bitterness in Woodman’s voice.

This week, Mr. Woodman is excited because he’s purchased a computer that can teach! He rolls it into Gabe’s classroom and informs Gabe that, from now on, he’ll be asking the computer for answers.

Obviously, it’s easy to roll your eyes at that bulky computer, especially since it appears to be more of a typewriter than anything else. (I’m going to assume that is was state-of-the-art for the 70s). Still, one could argue that this episode predicted the rise of A.I. Gabe types in his questions and then the computer gives him an answer. The computer has been programmed to always be correct. Gabe complains that the computer can’t tell jokes but the Sweathogs don’t care. They love the computer! And, after a few days, Woodman returns to the classroom with a chart that shows how everyone’s grades have improved.

Woodman thinks that the computer is his ticket to a promotion. He also thinks that the computer will finally allow him to fire Gabe. (Sometimes, Woodman likes Gabe and sometimes, he tries to get him fired. Normally, I’d complain about the inconsistency but the genius of John Sylvester White’s performance is that you just accept that Woodman’s insane and move on.) The Sweathogs fear that Gabe will lose his job so Epstein sabotages the computer so that it gives wrong answers when Woodman tries to demonstrate it to a district representative. Did you know the Harlem Globetrotters fought at the Battle of Waterloo?

It’s never really made clear how Epstein sabotaged the computer but no matter. One of the flaws of AI is that, even though it acts like its thinking, it’s actually just repeating whatever it’s programmed to do. This computer claims that the Globetrotters fought at Waterloo. Decades later, Google Gemini would become infamous for creating ahistorical images of black and female presidents who were all presumably elected at a time when only white men were allowed to vote or run for office. AI never changes.

I would have loved to have seen Barbarino interact with the computer. He was seriously missed in this episode. But Woodman’s unhinged personality made up for a lot of that. This was fun, even if it still wasn’t nearly as memorable as any of the episodes from the first two seasons of the show.

As for this episodes jokes, Gabe tried to tell Julie a joke about his Uncle Magnovich. Julie didn’t seem to care that much. At the end of the episode, Gabe tried to tell the computer a joke. The computer did not react. “Don’t you get it?” Gabe typed.

“No,” the computer replied.

Poor Gabe!

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 3.16 “Sweatwork”

Posted on April 6, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Arnold Horshack becomes the mad prophet of the air waves.

Episode 3.16 “Sweatwork”

(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on December 22nd, 1977)

At the new apartment, Gabe tells Julie about his Uncle Herman. “He’s a sports mechanic,” Gabe explains, “He fixes basketball games.”

Hey, that’s illegal!

Meanwhile, at the school, Woodman asks to meet with Freddie. Freddie agrees, even though Woodman has been acting strangely. Woodman enters the classroom and immediately asks for a high five, holding up his hand and saying, “Right on, bro. Skin me.”

Woodman is excited because the school board is giving money to every high school to start a radio station. And the station that gets the highest ratings will receive a trophy. Buchanan High has never won a trophy before. Because Freddie has radio experience, Woodman want Freddie to be in charge of Buchanan’s station. Freddie agrees.

“That’s groovy!” Woodman says.

Juan Epstein and Darth Vader at the station

Freddie makes Epstein the consumer repairs reporter while giving Horshack the lead anchor role. (Vinnie is also said to be a reporter but John Travolta is never actually seen in this episode.) Unfortunately, Horshack turns out to be ratings poison.

“He reminds me of Tokyo Rose,” Woodman says, while listening to Horshack. “Bye bye, young G.I.”

Freddie follows Woodman’s orders and fires Horshack but he does agree to allow Horshack one more broadcast to say goodbye. Grabbing the microphone, Horshack asks his listeners to go to their windows and shout, “I’m fed up, Arnold …. AND I DON’T CARE WHO KNOWS IT!”

Suddenly, Horshack is ratings gold. He’s the mad prophet of the air waves. He has fans who hang on his every word. But when Horshack announces that the teachers should not be given a raise, he is invited to the Kotter apartment. Gabe tells Horshack that he has meddled in the primal forces of nature and “YOU WILL ATONE!”

Horshack drops his anti-teacher rhetoric and goes back to being a normal, boring broadcaster. His ratings crash. Woodman vengefully announces that Horshack will be kept after school.

“This has been the story of Arnold Horshack,” Gabe says, “the only man kept after school for bad ratings.”

The episode ends with Gabe telling Woodman about how his Uncle Simon was buried in a rented tux and his father has to pay $15 a month as a result. Woodman finds the joke to be hilarious and laughs so much that even Gabe starts to get nervous.

This episode, which you’ve already guessed was a parody of Network, had its moments. Gabe is barely in this sone but I did enjoy his take on Ned Beatty’s famous monologue. And any episode that features a lot of Woodman is going to be enjoyable because John Sylvester White was always delightfully unhinged in the role. In the end, how one reacts to this episode will depend on how much tolerance one has for Ron Pallilo’s performance as Arnold Horshack. By the time the third season came around, Pallilo’s performance in the role had gone from eccentric to cartoonish and a little of Horshack tended to be a lot. Personally, I think Epstein should have been this episode’s Howard Beale. That said, I chuckled quite a bit while watching this episode. It was certainly better than the radio station episodes of Saved By The Bell.

Next week, Gabe freaks out when the Sweathogs are taught by a computer! A.I. has been around a lot longer than I thought.

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 3.15 “A Sweathog Christmas Special”

Posted on March 30, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Merry Christmas from the Kotters!

Episode 3.15 “A Sweathog Christmas Special”

(Dir by Mel Stuart, originally aired on December 15th, 1977)

The Kotters are trimming the tree and getting ready to celebrate Christmas. (Before anyone points out the obvious, it’s mentioned that they also celebrated Hannukah.) Suddenly, the Sweathogs show up. Shouldn’t the Sweathogs be with their own families? Vinnie’s mother is a saint. Epstein has dozens of sisters. Horshack’s family needs him! Freddie …. well, we’ve never really met Freddie’s family but still, he has one. Then suddenly, Woodman shows up, dressed as Santa Claus! Doesn’t Woodman have a family? Actually, he probably doesn’t.

Anyway, all of this leads to everyone sharing their favorite memories and …. IT’S A FLASHBACK EPISODE!

Hey, who am I to complain? Flashback episodes are very easy to review, because nothing happens. And the clips are from episodes that have already been reviewed. It’s Easter weekend. I’m happy to have something easy to deal with.

That said, I will point out one interesting thing about this episode. Even though it aired halfway through the third season, most of the flashbacks were from the first season. We revisited the Sweathogs having a rumble in the school courtyard. We once again witnessed Vinnie searching the Kotter refrigerator and complaining about the lack of food. “Hi there,” Freddie said about a dozen times. Julie tried to get Gabe to eat her “famous tuna casserole.” “Up your nose with a rubber hose,” Barbarino said several times. Woodman cheerfully predicted the end of the world several times and it was interesting to revisit his descent into madness. We spent a lot of time revisiting the first season but there were no flashbacks to Julie finding out she was pregnant or Julie giving birth while the Sweathogs sat in the hospital waiting room. Seeing as how this was the twins’s first holiday, you would think Gabe and Julie would bring them up at some point.

It’s as if the show itself was acknowledging just how much better the first season was than the seasons that followed. Watching those season one flashbacks, it was a bit jarring to be reminded of the fact that this show started out as the fairly realistic story of a dedicated teacher who refused to give up on his remedial students. The first season was full of broad comedy but it also had a lot of heart and sincerity, which are two qualities that have been missing from much of the third season. It was nice to be reminded of the fact that the show was not always as cartoonish as it later became.

Anyway, on that note — Merry Christmas!

Oh! For those keeping track, Gabe’s pre-show joke was about his Uncle Arnold. Arnold got a hearing aid. It didn’t work well.

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 3.14 “Epstein’s Madonna”

Posted on March 23, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Epstein is finally the center of the action. Unfortunately, the episode doesn’t really take advantage of the character and all of his possibilities.

Episode 3.14 “Epstein’s Madonna”

(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on December 8th, 1977)

For his art project, Epstein paints a picture of a naked woman on the outside wall of Buchanan High. (Actually, it stretches out across two walls.) The Sweathogs are impressed. The local media wants to do a story on the painting. Epstein is proud of himself. Woodman is offended, even after Gabe points out that Botticelli also painted nudes.

“Botticelli,” Woodman replies, “didn’t paint a nude with Born To Boogie tattooed on her thigh!”

Gabe is all about defending Esptein’s right to express himself …. up until he realizes why the painting looks so familiar to him. As Epstein explains it, he put Julie’s head on Debbie Del Vecchio’s body. Gabe likes the body but he’s less happy about Julie’s face staring at him from the wall. And it must be said that the painted Julie looks even more annoyed with Gabe than the real-life Julie.

Julie, surprisingly enough, is flattered. That’s not really the reaction that one would expect from Julie, who is usually a lot more uptight. But, after being married to Gabe for five years or however long they’ve been together, Julie is probably just happy to know that there are still other options out there for her. Seriously, Julie …. Epstein takes care of his family and he has that cute gap between his front teeth.

Does Gabe deface Epstein’s artwork? Though tempted, he does not. Someone else does and there’s some confusion when Gabe is caught holding the spray-paint can but that’s all forgotten when the other Sweathogs jump in to help fix the painting. Good for them! Epstein passes his class, the painting gets to say on the wall for a week, and …. well, that’s it. Wow, that wasn’t a very consequential episode.

“Lisa, what about the jokes!?”

Oh yeah! Gabe tells Julie about his Cousin Janet, who lied about being pregnant and seriously injured so that her parents would be less upset about the D she got in English. He also talks about his Uncle Willie who used his resemblance to Jimmy Cagney to get laid. Julie was amused by both jokes, which I think was a record for her.

This episode really didn’t have much going on. In the first season, Gabe would have had a semi-serious heart-to-heart talk with Epstein about his love for art and it would have been touching. But, in the third season, the show was more about catch phrases and audience applause than teaching life lessons. It’s a shame because Robert Hegyes usually did a pretty good job as the tough but secretly sensitive Juan Epstein. This episode has to be considered a bit of a missed opportunity.

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 3.13 “Swine and Punishment”

Posted on March 16, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, in a special Thanksgiving episode, Freddie is accused of cheating.

Episode 3.13 “Swine and Punishment”

(Dir by Bob Claver, originally aired on November 24th, 1977)

At the new apartment, Gabe tells Julie about the time his Uncle Thomas came across a man who had his ear to the ground. Uncle Thomas listened to the ground and heard nothing. The man agreed and said that it had been that way for hours. It was a bit of an odd joke but Julie laughed.

Meanwhile, at the school, Mr. Woodman interrupts Gabe’s class to announce that Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington passed his English test. He got a 94!

YAY!

Mr. Woodman says that there’s no way that Freddie could have passed the test without cheating.

Boo! Hiss! Hiss!

Seriously, Mr. Woodman’s usually a great character and John Sylvester White’s unhinged performance is one of the few consistently funny things about this show (especially in the later seasons) but Woodman is the worst in this episode. One of the Sweathogs finally does well in a class that isn’t taught by Mr. Kotter and Woodman accuses him of cheating. No wonder the Sweathogs don’t have any self-esteem.

Woodman says that Freddie can prove his innocence by taking and passing a make-up exam. Freddie refuses and Gabe supports him. But when the other Sweathogs talk about how proud they are of Freddie, Freddie relents and agrees to take the makeup test.

That night, Freddie shows up at the Kotter apartment. After thanking Gabe for supporting him, Freddie reveals that he did cheat on the first test. He cheated because he knew the material (apparently, Freddie is a huge fan of Alexandre Dumas and The Three Musketeers) and he couldn’t stand the idea of getting a bad grade on material that he knew. Freddie’s self-esteem is so low that he’s convinced that he can’t pass a test without cheating.

Awwwwww! Poor Freddie!

With Gabe’s encouragement, Freddie takes the makeup exam without cheating. (The other Sweathogs attempt to write the answers on a gyro sandwich but Horshack screws it up by putting mustard on the sandwich and …. well, look, it was all really dumb, okay?) Freddie again passes the exam, this time getting an 84.

Yay!

But Gabe tells Freddie that he still needs to tell the truth about cheating on the first exam….

WHAT!? Gabe — what are you thinking!?

Freddie agrees that Gabe is right and I can only assume that he got kicked out of school as a result. Sorry, Freddie, it was nice knowing you.

Back at the Kotter apartment, Julie refuses to listen to Gabe talk about his Uncle Robert so Gabe talks to the Thanksgiving turkey instead.

This episode felt very familiar to me and eventually, I realized that it was basically just a remake of the season two episode where Freddie was accused of stealing from the Sweathog emergency fund. Of course, during the earlier seasons, there’s no way Gabe would have pressured Freddie to confess. By the time the third season rolled around, the Sweathogs and Gabe had lost a bit of their edge and were now more concerned with being good role models.

That said, this episode deserves some credit for giving Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs a showcase. Of all the Sweathogs, Freddie was often the one who was regulated to just standing in the background and looking cool. With this episode, the viewer is reminded that Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs was a good actor in his own right and capable of playing both drama and comedy.

Next week …. it’s Epstein’s turn in the spotlight!