Welcome Back, Kotter was an American sitcom set around a sardonic high school teacher played by Gabe Kaplan who was in charge of a racially and ethnically diverse remedial class called the “Sweathogs.” Recorded in front of a live studio audience, it ran on ABC from September 9, 1975, to May 17, 1979. Mr. Kotter, a wisecracking teacher who returns to his alma mater, James Buchanan High School in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York, to teach a remedial class of loafers, called “Sweathogs.” The rigid vice-principal, Michael Woodman dismisses the Sweathogs as witless hoodlums and only expects Kotter to contain them until they drop out or are otherwise banished. As a former remedial student and a founding member of the original class of Sweathogs, Kotter befriends the current Sweathogs and stimulates their potential. A pupil-teacher rapport is formed, and the students often visit Kotter’s Bensonhurst apartment, sometimes via the fire-escape window, much to the chagrin of his wife. Welcome Back, Kotter’s first season was controversial. In Boston, the local ABC initially refused to air the show as the city was going through a tumultuous school busing program that involved widespread protests and riots, and the local affiliate felt Kotter’s fictional integrated classroom would exacerbate the situation. The show became an early ratings success, however, and the affiliate relented, picking it up from its fifth episode. Additionally, teachers in other cities had concerns about how Kotter would be portrayed, so producers allowed a union representative on the set to ensure the show protected the image of those in the profession. Kaplan opposed the idea, at one point asking a reporter if there was a junkman on the set of Sanford and Son to protect the reputation of junkmen.