What's Happening!!: The Testimonial

What's Happening!!: The Testimonial
ABC
December 15, 1977
Sitcom
DVD
B

Miss Collins (Fritzi Burr) is being honored for 25 years of teaching.  Raj, who resents her strictness, decides to give her an empty box as a present, and he gets the guys to go in on it.  Then he feels terrible when he realizes why she is the way she is and how fond she is of him.  Her husband, Mr. Collins, saves the day, with prompting from Mabel.  I was thinking maybe Miss Collins teaches under her maiden name, but nope.  My guess is that the character was originally designed as a spinster, but they could've just called her Ms. Collins and avoided the confusion.  An audience member is audibly amused by her first name of Gertrude.

Richard Couture is indeed the Student I thought he was, since his name is in the closing credits and he has a line about the Spanish-American War.