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Title:
Welcome Back, Kotter: The Complete First Season
Region:
One
Genre:
Sitcom
Disc
One Episodes: The Great Debate, Basket Case, Welcome Back (Pilot), Whodunit?,
The Election, No More Mister Nice Guy
Disc
Two Episodes: Classroom Marriage, One Of Our Sweathogs Is Missing, Mr. Kotter,
Teacher, The Reunion, Barbarino’s Girl, California Dreamin’
Disc
Three Episodes: Arrivederci, Arnold, The Longest Weekend, The Sit-In, Follow The
Leader Part 1, Follow The Leader Part 2, Dr. Epstein, I Presume
Disc
Four Episodes: One Flu Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The Telethon, Kotter Makes
Good, Father Vinnie
Stars:
Gabriel Kaplan, John Travolta, Robert Hegyes, Ron Palillo, Lawrence
Hilton-Jacobs, Marcia Strassman, and John Sylvester White
Writers:
Rick Mittleman, Jerry Ross, Peter Meyerson, Jerry Rannow, Jewel Jaffe Rannow,
Eric Cohen, Tiffany York, George Yanok, William Raynor, Myles Wilder, Marilyn
Miller, Michael Weinberger, Carl Kleinschmitt, William Bickley, Michael Warren,
Ann Gibbs, Joel Kimmel, Pat Proft, and Bo Kaprall
Director:
Bob LaHendro
Created
By Gabriel Kaplan and Alan Sacks
Executive
Producer: James Komack
Feature
length: 533 minutes
Extras:
Only A Few Degrees From A Sweathog Retrospective Featurette and Actor’s
Original Screen Tests
Languages:
English Monaural Sound
Subtitles:
English Closed Captions
Packaging:
Two 2-Disc Single Size Thinkpacks Within A Cardboard Slipcase
Sound:
Monaural Sound
Years
of Television Broadcast: 1975-1976/DVD Release: 2007
Home
Video Distributor: Warner Home Video
MPAA
Rating: Not Rated
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
Welcome
Back, Kotter
premiered in 1975 in a small window of an era that was post-Watergate, pre-Jimmy
Carter, pre-bicentennial, pre-Star Wars, and pre-disco since the actual
music fad was already in a slow decline before John Travolta, Welcome Back,
Kotter’s breakout Star would bring it to the forefront with Saturday
Night Fever and have an effect on the Brooklyn neighborhood known as
Bensonhurst for over a decade. Coincidentally Welcome Back, Kotter takes
place in Bensonhurst, while Saturday Night Fever took place at least in
part in the neighborhood next door called Bay Ridge. This is somewhat ironic
because having grown up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and gone to high school where
many of my friends lived in Bensonhurst, I have always thought the disco era had
a more profound impact on a generation of people who lived in the largely
Italian American neighborhood of Bensonhurst. Bay Ridge tended to be more
integrated with Scandinavian and Norwegian immigrants having founded the
neighborhood over 150 years ago and up until the Subway extended into Bay Ridge
in 1914, the neighborhood was still a combination of farms along with mansions
that overlooked a beach that pretty much has disappeared over the years. During
the Great Depression Italian, Irish and Jewish immigrants moved into Bay Ridge
and in the 1970s Spanish American followed by Arabic immigrants and some Russian
immigrants moved into the neighborhood to further diversify it.
Bay
Ridge is still a beautiful oasis in Brooklyn that has a somewhat small town
feel, but is not too far away from Manhattan to enjoy the benefits of being a
part of New York City. Bensonhurst has perhaps a more noteworthy reputation not
only because of some of the people who grew up there went on to become famous,
like Carl Sagan, but Bensonhurst was the setting of The Honeymooners
decades before Welcome Back, Kotter premiered on ABC in 1975. Being
familiar with both Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst as well as a proud resident of
Brooklyn, (The Center Of The Universe), New York, I find watching films like Saturday
Night Fever and the credits in Welcome Back, Kotter as well as the
show’s references to certain locales in Bensonhurst, some of which no longer
exist, quite nostalgic. While the series notes New Utrecht High School as being
one of the nearby competing public schools, I believe the setting of James
Buchanan High School is actually inspired by New Utrecht, which is featured in
the show’s filmed opening and closing credits along with the legendary 86
street under the elevated train tracks and the sign that greeted drivers coming
in from Staten Island and merging into the sea side Belt Parkway. The sign has
since changed to something that I think reads “Welcome To Brooklyn” and then
quotes Jackie Gleason from The Honeymooners with the words “How Sweet
It Is” beneath the welcoming part.
It’s
interesting to note that in the mid 1980s ABC had a sitcom called Head Of The
Class, which took place in a Manhattan high school with a history teacher
who instructs a class of the school’s brightest in using their minds for more
than just remembering what’s in the books, which is not at all dissimilar to
Gabriel Kaplan portraying Gabriel Kotter, a social studies teacher and former
academic underachiever, who returns to teach a class of academic underachievers
to do same thing the history teacher in Head Of The Class did. The
difference perhaps may be the state of American TV viewers’ conscious between
the recession filled Ford and Carter Era and the more materialistic and somewhat
more conservative Regan era, where for a brief decade, everyone was in blissful
denial of domestic and international events and were easily placated by
Regan’s charm and the glossier 80’s image that idolized the wealthy and
powerful without regard for the poor. To a certain extent I would say America is
still a country in denial, but hindsight tells me the 1980s was truly the era
where it was “Better to look marvelous than to feel marvelous.”
Welcome Back, Kotter was inspired by Kaplan’s own standup
routine, which he based on his own public school experiences.
The
underachievers are known as The Sweathogs and are the bane of Vice Principal
Woodman (John Sylvester White),
who once taught the remedial class Kotter was a part of and Kotter now teaches
while scheming for a way to have it disbanded because he feels it is a waste of
school resources. Among Kotter’s Sweathogs are Vinnie Barbarino (John Travolta),
the groups self appointed leader, Juan Luis Pedro Phillipo de Huevos Epstein
(Robert Hegyes), a Puerto Rican Jew voted most likely to kill somebody in the
yearbook, Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs), an
African American student who dreams of being in the NBA, and Ron Palillo as
Arnold Horshack, a peppy and sweet hearted student who will beg for attention
even when he’s the only student raising his hand and has a nasal wheezing
laugh. For Palillo the character of Arnold Horshack would be a claim to
television fame he would forever be associated with. Many catch phrases from the
show ranging from rank outs like “Get off my case, toilet face” or “Up
your nose with a rubber hose” are a part of contemporary television pop
culture as are the fake excuse letter Kotter frequently receives from Epstein
signed Juan Epstein’s Mother… James Woods has a guest-starring role in
“The Great Debate.”
Gabriel
Kaplan’s signature hair and mustache also became a part of pop culture
frequently parodied in modern sitcoms that attempt to point a finger back at
1970s television. The famous scene where a paper plane lands right in Kotter’s
hair was actually something that just happened by accident, but the audience at
the live taping roared out with so much laughter, it was the take used for the
pilot’s TV premiere. Kaplan’s jokes at times show a sweetness in his
character that makes the viewer like him more and also sells his relationship
with his wife played by Marcia Strassman. The casting of the ensemble works so
well that at times it takes the edge away from the series a little too much. The
screen tests included on the DVD for John
Travolta, Robert Hegyes, Ron Palillo, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, and Marcia
Strassman, which can be viewed individually or as one reel (11:23) give an idea
of how certain characters were developed between the casting phase and the
actual production of the series. Robert Hegyes is shown actually trying to get
the role that went to John Travolta. A retrospective featurette hosted by Marcia
Strassman (23:25) and featuring new interview clips with cast members with the
exception of John Travolta and the series producers offers some interesting
insights into the development of the show’s first season.
I
was quite impressed by the quality of both the video and film elements from the
show as well the clear English Monaural Soundtrack especially when compared to
other shows shot on video for the mid 1970s available on DVD. I’m not sure if
it’s all in the authoring or if the tapes were just well preserved, but
whatever the case may be, Welcome Back Kotter looks and sounds terrific
and arguably better than most people have ever seen and heard it too. Optional
English Closed Captions for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired are encoded onto all
four discs and the menus are all standard interactive still frames that easy to
navigate. Episodes can be viewed individually or through a “Play All”
feature. The episodes are presented according to their original premiere
airdates on ABC and some of the shows are clearly not in proper order. For
example a character will appear in one episode and then another episode
afterwards will address the character as if it were his or her first
introduction to the show. Even the pilot was aired as the third episode instead
of the first.
I
really enjoyed watching Welcome Back, Kotter again after all these years
and highly recommend those fond of the series pick up Welcome Back, Kotter:
The Complete First Season when it debuts on DVD-Video at retailers on and
offline on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 courtesy of Warner Home Video.
©
Copyright 2007 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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