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At one time "Welcome Back Kotter" was best remembered
as the show that propelled John Travolta to stardom. That's
unfair to a funny show that did much more than launch a
career or two. Building the series around star Gabe Kaplan,
James Kovacs created a perfect counterpoint to "Happy Days"-kids
that were obnoxious, stupid and funny as they struggled
through the one mishap after the next. The show might have
SEEMED revolutionary but it wasn't-it depended on the typical
situations but bouncing them off of Kaplan's often deadpan
response and dry wit made the show appear to be more than
it was. ***
Kaplan plays Gabe Kotter a teacher who has returned
to the very high school he graduated from to teach a different
generation of kids. The vice-principal (the delightfully
droll John Sylvester White) remembers Kotter from back when
and that plays into both his expectations and suspicion
of Kotter. The Perpetually perky and beautiful Marcia Strassman
plays Kotter's wife Julie (Strassman more than twenty years
later in "Honey I've Shrunk the Kids" didn't look a day
older to me-amazing!) who primarily plays straight woman
to Kaplan's Kotter. Featuring Ron Palillo, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs
(who also went on to some post-fame Kotter work as well),
Robert Hegyes the show works surprisingly well thirty plus
years later. Heck, the series even briefly revived musician
John Sebastian (member of The Lovin' Spoonful and author
of such as classics as "Do You Believe in Magic?", "Summer
in the City", "Daydream", "Jugband Music") with the catchy
theme song becoming a hit single. ---
Image & Sound:
Compression rears its ugly little head for "Kotter"
making the show look less than stellar. The show was shot
in videotape so it already had a strike against it in that
videotape ages less well than film overall (or did then).
Colors tend to bleed a bit and aren't as accurate as you
would see in film. Also, images tend to be on the soft side
overall. It's not a complete disaster just don't expect
perfection.Audio accurately reflects what TV sounded like
at the time-mono with dialogue up front which is a good
thing for a dialogue driven comedy with some nice slapstick
touches to keep it visually interesting.
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