A popular ABC-TV sitcom from 1975 to 1979, Welcome Back, Kotter featured Gabriel Kaplan in the title role of Gabriel Kotter, a teacher who returns to his alma mater, Brooklyn's fictional James Buchanan High School, to instruct a bunch of remedial students known as the Sweathogs. Kaplan, who created the show with Alan Sacks, based Welcome Back, Kotter on his own real-life experiences in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, where he had himself been branded an "unteachable" student until inspired by a teacher named Miss Shepherd. Comedienne Janeane Garofalo once expressed relief that Welcome Back, Kotter was the fashion arbiter in her youth instead of Beverly Hills 90210 with its designer duds, because it was easier to live up to Kotter's image of frizzy-haired students dressed in flared jeans and army jackets.

The Sweathogs were tough and streetwise, although their worst insult amounted to "Up your...