Trivia / Welcome Back, Kotter

• The Danza: Gabriel Kaplan as Gabriel Kotter.
• Directed by Cast Member: Robert Hegyes directed the season three finale "Close Encounters of the Carvelli Kind".
• Executive Meddling: Contract disputes with executive producer James Komack led to Gabe Kaplan making limited appearances in the fourth and final season. Since John Travolta also made limited appearances after the success of Saturday Night Fever (he only appeared in ten episodes and was billed as a special guest star), the show lost its two male leads. The writing staff was also fired and replaced with writers who were more experienced with doing family series. The ground was laid for a spinoff focused on Horshack and his new teen bride, but nothing materialized and the show was finally cancelled in the spring of 1979.
• Hostility on the Set: While the show was still airing Marcia Strassman was quoted in a People magazine article that she "prayed for [its] cancellation" regularly due to her having such a difficult working relationship with Gabe Kaplan (who, she said, would be her best friend one day and not talk to her the next). When the show's production resumed after those comments were published, the actors playing the Sweathogs made a point of physically surrounding her to keep Kaplan from attacking her, since they weren't sure he wouldn't. Tensions grew to the point where all of them eventually had to take sides, which helped hasten the show's demise.
• The Merch: Several paperback tie-in novels with original stories, a comic book, a lunchbox, a "Welcome Back, Kotter" board game, and Sweathog action figures with a classroom play area.
• The Pete Best: Rosalie "Hotsie" Totsie, the female Sweathog.
• Real-Life Relative: John Travolta's sister Ellen played Horshack's mother, Mrs. Horshack, who later remarried and became Mrs. O'Hara, taking on another surname when she remarries in Season 4's two-part story "Oo-oo, I Do".
• Referenced by...: The episode "Tunnel" of Barney Miller featured Howard Gabriel, a disgruntled teacher who loses his cool after the students taunt him, his name being an obvious reference to Gabriel Kotter and his actor Gabriel Kaplan.
• Star-Making Role: Vinnie Barbarino was one of two roles that launched John Travolta to stardom, the other being Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever. (He appeared in Carrie (1976) in between, but in a secondary role.)
• Tie-In Novel: Six of them by William Johnston: The Sweathog Trail, The Sweathog Newshawks, The Super Sweathogs, 10-4 Sweathogs, The Sweathog Sit-In and Barbarino Drops Out.
• Vindicated by Reruns: Somewhat. After its original lackluster syndication in the early 80s, the show fell into obscurity in the US until Nick At Nite and TV Land added it to their line-ups in the mid to late 90s. The episode with George Carlin was picked for Malcolm Bondon's Ultimate Fan Hour.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Thinking the actors were getting too old by the end of Season 3 to play high schoolers, Kaplan proposed having the Sweathogs graduate and go to a community college at which Kotter had taken a teaching job.
  • Farrah Fawcett and Kate Jackson auditioned for Julie Kotter.

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