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.

This week, Horshack takes center stage.  You’ve been warned.

Episode 4.11 “Frog Day Afternoon”

(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on November 25th, 1978)

This week’s episode of Welcome Back, Kotter does not feature Mr. Kotter.

It does not feature Vinne Barbarino.

It doesn’t even feature Beau, the new Sweathog.

It does feature a lot of the show’s two most annoying characters, Arnold Horshack and Julie Kotter.

Horshack doesn’t want to dissect a frog because he’ll be required to kill the frog before cutting it open.  Did they really used to require students to personally kill their own frog in biology class?  That’s a little extreme.  I always assumed that everyone just got frogs that were already dead.

Julie, of course, support Horshack’s right to not open up a frog and argues with Woodman about it.  I’m not really sure what Julie actually does at the school.  Sometimes, she appears to be a guidance counselor.  Other times, she appears to be a receptionist.  She’s been called Woodman’s “secretary” a few times but we don’t ever actually see her doing any sort of secretarial work.  I guess that, when Gabe Kaplan announced he wouldn’t be appearing in the majority of the 4th season episodes, they had to put Julie in the school so that there would still be a Kotter in Welcome Back, Kotter.  But Julie’s originally from Nebraska so it’s not like she’s the one being welcomed back to Brooklyn.

Anyway, Horshack argues that frogs don’t get a say in whether or not they want to die and he refuses to kill them.  His teacher (Dena Dietrich) says that she’ll have to give Horshack an F.  Washington says, “You better lay one of those F’s on me too.”  Epstein also decides to take the F.  The entire class is so moved by Horshack’s stand that they all ask for an F as well!

Normally, this would be very moving but since every student at the school appears to be in their 30s, it’s pretty obvious that none of them are that worried about their grades.  When you’ve already been held back twelve times, it’s not like another F is going to make a difference.

This episode …. yech.  I mean, to be honest, I had sympathy for Horshack’s position.  I certainly wouldn’t want to kill a frog or any other animal and I agree that students who object should be given an alternative assignment.  I mean, unless you’re planning on actually going into the medical field, I don’t really see what the point is in dissecting things in school.  But Horshack has become such an annoying character that it didn’t matter that I agreed with him.  I just wanted him to stop talking!

During the first season, Ron Pallilo actually did a pretty good job playing Horshack.  Horshack was strange but he wasn’t a cartoon.  But that changed somewhere around the middle of the second season and, with each episode since then, Horshack has progressively become more and more annoying.  He’s not a proper replacement for Barbarino.

Anyway. bless the frogs.  They’re nice creatures if you don’t bother them.

This is my final Welcome Back, Kotter review of 2024.  These reviews will resume after the holidays, on January 4th.