Welcome Back, Kotter: Angie

Welcome Back, Kotter: Angie
ABC
January 12, 1978
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This episode-- written by George Arthur Bloom, Beverly Bloomberg, Paul Mason, and producer James Komack-- confused me as a child.  I'd been watching the show for two and a half seasons and suddenly I found out that girls couldn't be Sweathogs!  Not that I wanted to be one when I got older (I was more the Judy Borden type, though less boastful), but I'd always assumed that everyone in that History class was a Sweathog.  Sure, there were all those kids who sat there and said little or nothing, but didn't they count?  What about Vernajean and Rosalie?  Now, ironically when Mr. Kotter is about to lecture on the ERA, Angie Globagoski (Melonie Haller) transfers from the Bronx and stuns the four main boys with her aspirations to be a Sweathog.  She is accepted by them in the end (well, early on by less macho Arnold), and the character would return, but obviously she's not as well remembered as Arnold, Freddie, Vinnie, or Juan.  Or Rosalie or Vernajean for that matter.

Welcome Back, Kotter: There Goes Number 5

Welcome Back, Kotter: There Goes Number 5
ABC
February 3, 1977
Sitcom
DVD
B-

The Rannows wrote this back-door pilot for Horshack, which explains Arnold's disappearance.  It's not bad as these things go and I remember enjoying it at the time, probably because I liked getting a look at Horshack's home life.  He's the oldest of four and his friendship with youngest sister Doris (Andrea McArdle, around the time she was a success as Little Orphan Annie onstage) is sweet.  Watching the episode now, I can't really see how it could've been strong enough for a series of its own, but an occasional visit back to the household would've been interesting within the WBK run.  The title refers to the death of his fifth stepfather, Mr. O'Hara the cab-driver.  (In the first season, it was Horshack's father who drove a cab, but maybe he referred to Mr. O'Hara as his father.)

Carrie Wasserman, who carried (sorry for the pun) the After School Special "Dear Lovey Hart," plays Arnold's friend Goldie, while Elyssa Davalos, who was her friend Linda in that plays Arnold's sister Judy.  Producer James Komack appears as Uncle Harry Orshack (with that spelling).  Ellen Travolta, John's thirty-six-year-old sister, appears as Arnold's mother.  (She was still a few years away from playing Scott Baio's mother on three different series.)  Strassman and White are both absent.

Welcome Back, Kotter: Pilot

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Welcome Back, Kotter: Pilot
ABC
September 23, 1975
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This is another pilot that wasn't the first episode to air.  But they added a bit of narration at the beginning to present it as a flashback.  It generally works, although as I recall the menacing juvenile deliquency would be toned down as the show went on.  (Here, Epstein being voted Most Likely to Take a Life is plausible, and Horshack actually comes to class with a porn magazine!)   Some things to note that will be contradicted or at least modified later: Woodman is the principal rather than the vice-principal, Julie likes the Sweathogs, and Gabe is presumably 26, since he refers to going to school in 1965 and tells Woodman he's no longer 16.  I like the references to the economy, rooting us in a specific time and place.

Don Stark is a student extra for the first of two times, while his classmate Mike Agresta would be an Office Worker five years later on the Bosom Buddies pilot.  And Leslie Ackerman, who plays Vinnie's sort of girlfriend Silvia would be back, but she makes less of an impression than Debralee Scott.  This is the first episode written by series co-creator Peter Meyerson, who'd written for That Girl and The Bob Newhart Show.  It's one of only three WBK episodes directed by producer James Komack.