everything you have heard about this movie is true.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

As an aspiring school teacher in an urban public school, my local Warner Brothers station affiliate WPIX Channel 11 airs Welcome Back, Kotter followed by other seventies' sitcoms, The Jeffersons, The Odd Couple, and Taxi (all shows set in New York City) but what a night to watch television --Saturdays from 8-10PM. After watching several episodes of Welcome Back, Kotter, I am exploring the possibility of using this show as an educational tool in the secondary classroom. Welcome Back, Kotter is about those disadvantaged students like me to show that they can succeed with a teacher who believes in them. Besides they have an excellent cast led by Gabriel Kaplan (whatever happened to him?), Marcia Strassman who plays his loving wife Julie, and the students or sweat hogs known as John Travolta playing Barbarino, Ron Palillo playing the lovable Horshach, and others like Juan Epstein (a Puerto Rican Jew) and others. The sweat hogs were not the high achieving students and looked down upon by other students. I can't wait for this show to come on DVD.

...and it's driving me nuts.JG: I remember there was one episode where Epstein paints Kotter's wife naked on the side of the school. They didn't show any details, of course. I hope that's not a spoiler.JL: Kotter is the prodigal son of NYC. He has gone out in the world with ambition, and now returned to find that his real calling was right at home. I often reflected on this difficulty as a youngster, seeing the elevated trains and dirty streets during the closing credits. I would always struggle with the duality between ambition for new experiences, and sticking with what you are good at. How would a neurotic Kotter sound after a hard day with the sweathogs?

I remember a long time ago when the USA Network I believe started announcing they were going to run Kotter. My friends and I were psyched! The big day came and we got our chow and watched. What a letdown. Within five minutes of us trying to enjoy ourselves, we changed our attitude for the rest of the show and instead of embracing it, we made fun of it. And even THAT was a strain, the show was so bad.It's unfathomable to think that there are some who not only enjoy the show (that's fine, I like some bad shows too) but who actually place it amongst the greatest sitcoms of all time. "Welcome Back Kotter" has to be (with the exception of "Happy Days" from the third season on) the worst popular sitcom ever made. This show is BAD. Not even "enjoyable" bad, just achingly painful-to-view bad.The worst was when the show forced the characters to do their catchphrases every show. Horshack's "ooh, ohh," Barbarino's "what...where, etc," Washington's "hi there," all showed such unbelievable strain, how can anyone laugh after the first time? Just like "Happy Days" when they went nuts with the catchphrases.But the really sad thing is, most of the actors on the show were decent enough, it was the unbelievably horrid writing that really hurt the show. Ironically, easily the most untalented person involved with the show was Gabe Kaplan. His character sucked, Kaplan couldn't do comedy (this guy was a comedian?) and sure couldn't get dramatic when needed, and I believe he wrote the show, or most of it? Kaplan, the man behind the show, was the show's main detriment.I did find it pretty facinating how the woman who played Kotter's wife was whining on and on about her lack of storylines on the show, when she was interviewed for some recent documentaries about "Kotter." She couldn't understand that her character was minor and not nearly as important to the show as most of the others? Actually, watching her whine and cry about her lack of involvement was more amusing than the show itself.However, if there ever is a reunion TV movie, I'll watch it, only because it would be fun to see these characters possibly with their sons and daughters as the new Sweathogs, seeing what route a reunion movie would take. Kotter as principal (poor 'ol Mr. Woodman), Epstein as the gym teacher, Washington as a guidance counselor.....

This show ranks highly among the other 1970's shows which we remember: "All in the Family", "Maude", "Sanford and Son", "One Day at a Time", and "The Jeffersons". These shows dealt with issues such as racism, divorce, abortion, and being poor. These shows had writing that was great, and characters that were even greater. The characters, which had flaws (Archie Bunker, Fred Sanford, and George Jefferson, etc.) which we all, whether we were conservative, or liberal, or moderate, could relate to."Welcome Back, Kotter" was about a dedicated teacher who wanted to return to his alma mater to try to deal with a bunch of remedial, misfit high school students in inner city NYC when no one else wanted to deal with them. These types of teenagers were not tackled on TV before. The casting was perfect for the NYC setting: from the nerd in Horshack, to the cool maverick in Barbarino, to the Latino in Epstein, to the Black male, of course, in Washington. There is also the Principal in Mr. Woodman. The writing was great. The timing was awesome. The theme song by John Sebastian is breathtaking. The show was purely magical in its first few seasons. There were problems, as life deals us sometimes. One was Marcia Straussman. She was very unhappy that her involvement in storylines was limited. It was unfortunate because the show primarily dealt with life at the school. Because she played the wife of the teacher, and she was primarily at home, there was not room for her. The act of making her a character on the show was not a good one. The Mrs. Kotter character would have been more appropriate on recurring basis. Another problem was differences between Gabe Kaplan and the other producers and writers. This explains why we never saw him much during the later run of the series.Gabe Kaplan's lack of involvement in the show's fourth and final season was just one of the many problems which doomed the show. The writing in that final season was sloppy, unrealistic, unfunny, and was so amateurish. As a teenager watching the show in reruns, I saw that something was amiss. The actors on the show complained that the scripts were trash. A storyline about Horshack getting married was about as bad as the writing could get, and it was that. The E! Channel's "E! True Hollywood Story" about this show talks about that dismal fourth season. Another major problem with that show in the fourth season was that the actors who played the Sweathogs. The problem with actors playing teenagers is that they were older than teenagers when they began portraying those characters. To prepare to portray teens, they had to learn how to be teenagers again. It worked in the early days.However, by the time the fourth season had arrived, the actors had matured and developed as adults where they were getting too old to portray teenagers anymore. They also did not look like teenagers, either. Let's not forget John Travolta and his blossoming as a movie star. These factors led to the demise of the series.The series was about a concept so fresh, people in this modern era can relate to it even more now than they could back in the 70's. This concept is about misfit children. This is why it was so popular for awhile in syndication. However, it fizzled in syndication because when those fourth season episodes began airing, the viewing felt that the whole show was crap and stopped watching. USA Network had it. TV Land had it. They both stopped showing it.Even though things did not end on a good note, true fans of the show can ignore that fourth season and remember the greater moments. It was a great show in general.