TV Flashback: Welcome Back, Kotter

I still remember well, trotting around as a kid, proudly wearing my Vinnie Barbarino “Sweathogs” T-shirt.

Back when I was a kid, Vinnie was probably the second coolest character on TV, right behind Fonzie from Happy Days.

Welcome Back, Kotter was a sitcom that aired on ABC from 1975-1979.

It is best remembered as the show that launched the career of actor John Travolta.

The show starred:

Gabe Kaplan – Gabe Kotter
Marcia Strassman – Julie Kotter
John Sylvester White – Mr. Woodman
John Travolta – Vinnie Barbarino
Ron Palillo – Arnold Horshack
Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs – Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington
Robert Heyges – Juan Luis Pedro Phillipo DeHuevos Epstein

The show featurd stand-up comic Kaplan as a wisecracking High School Teacher that returns to his alma-mater in Brooklyn and ends up being saddled with the remedial class of students affectionately known as “The Sweathogs“.

Most of the characters were based on actual people from Kaplan’s teen years as a High School Student in Brooklyn.

The original title of the show was simply going to be “Kotter“. Singer John Sebastian composed the theme song, “Welcome Back“, and producers liked the song so much, they incorporated “Welcome Back” into the title of the show.

Farrah Fawcett and Kate Jackson, of “Charlie’s Angels” fame, both auditioned for the role of Julie Kotter.

The Sweathogs were supposed to be High School students, but in later seasons, Ron Pallilo was 29, Robert Heyges 27, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs 25, and John Travolta was 24 yrs old.

During the run of the series, Travolta would make the movies “Saturday Night Fever“, “Carrie“, and “Grease“. Travolta’s phasing out of the show, in order to concentrate on his movie career, contributed to it’s cancellation.

**Robert Heyges passed away in January of 2012 of an apparent Heart Attack. He was 60yrs old. **