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Sweat Hogs

Who says we didn’t grow up with gangs?  Our gang was the Sweathogs from Buchanan High School.  We never missed an episode, and I like many others learned to use the saying, “Up your nose with a rubber hose.”

• Welcome Back, Kotter is an American television sitcom starring Gabe Kaplan and featuring a young John Travolta. Videotaped in front of a live studio audience, it originally aired on the ABC network from September 9, 1975, to June 8, 1979. Wikipedia

·       The show starred stand-up comic/ actor Gabe Kaplan as the title character, Gabe Kotter, a wisecracking teacher who returns to his high school alma mater, the fictional James Buchanan High in Brooklyn, New York, to teach an often unruly group of remedial loafers known as the "Sweathogs." (The nickname reflected the fact that the remedial classes were held on the very top floor of the high school.) The school was based on New Utrecht High School, which was used in the opening credits, and also the high school that Kaplan attended. The school's principal was perpetually absent, while the uptight vice principal, Michael Woodman (John Sylvester White), dismissed the Sweathogs as worthless hoodlums and only expected Kotter to attempt to contain them until they inevitably dropped out.

·       Kotter, however, had attended the same remedial classes when he was a student at Buchanan, and was a founding member of the Sweathogs. Recognizing that he was his students' last chance to learn enough to survive beyond high school, he soon befriended them as they grew to recognize and appreciate his trust and faith in their potential. His devotion to the class was such that his students often visited his Bensonhurst apartment, sometime via window, but often to the chagrin of his wife, Julie (Marcia Strassman). 

Welcome Back Kotter Theme Song

The actor Ron Palillo who played Arnold Horshack passed away last year (8-14-12) R.I.P.  Throughout his life Mr. Palillo was adversely affected by the role of Horshack, because he was forever typecast (a reflection of the great acting job that he did).  Four years of wonderful entertainment and beyond with the success of John Travolta to this day.  The best is yet to come....