John Travolta Remembers Being Slammed by Producer After Taping Welcome Back, Kotter Pilot: ‘What Happened?’

John Travolta became a household name thanks to his role as Vinnie Barbarino on Welcome Back, Kotter, but when they filmed the first episode, one producer was not happy with his performance.

Gabe Kaplan, who co-created the series based on his stand-up comedy and starred in the show as the titular Kotter, dove into the making of the series in a new essay for the September issue of Emmy Magazine, marking the show’s 50th anniversary.

Kaplan, 80, and producer Alan Sacks created the series together, and they were soon connected with James Komack, a producer and director, who, at the time, produced the Freddie Prinze series Chico and the Man. According to Kaplan, Komack, who died in 1997 at age 73, was initially critical of the series, which would follow Kaplan as Kotter, a former student who returns to his high school to teach a remedial class. Sacks told him that Komack said, “This might be the worst idea for a show I’ve ever heard.”

But, according to Kaplan, when Michael Eisner, then head of programming at ABC, loved the series and ordered a pilot, “Suddenly, Jimmy became totally immersed in the worst idea he’d ever heard.” 

They taped the pilot twice, and Travolta, 71, shared his memories of that day with Kaplan — and they weren’t positive. “Jimmy came down on me after the first show,” Travolta said. “He was like, ‘What happened? Where was that guy from rehearsals? We won’t get on the air if you do that again.’ ”

Travolta turned to Kaplan for comfort, who told him he was “great.” Kaplan wrote, “Maybe as a director, Jimmy thought he could get a better performance that way, but John says it shook him up.” 

The second pilot taping ultimately went better for “everyone,” including Kaplan, who was not a practiced actor. But Kaplan also remembered what ultimately helped Travolta finally figure out how he wanted to play Vinnie: the 1973 movie Mean Streets, and Robert DeNiro’s character Johnny Boy. 

“I know guys like Johnny Boy,” he said. “You know you should stay away from them, but you can’t.”

Kaplan said Travolta found a “new soul” for Barbarino. He also started saying one of his catchphrases — “What? Where? When?” — and the writers started putting it in the script. But Komack didn’t like it. 

“Later, Jimmy hated another Barbarino line even more: ‘I’m so confused,’ ” Kaplan wrote. “The fans loved it, but after we used it once, Jimmy banned it, saying, ‘This is supposed to be the leader of your gang. You’re turning him into a f—— idiot!’ ”

Welcome Back, Kotter premiered in September 1975 and became a massive hit, with Barbarino as the breakout character and Travolta as the biggest star. Travolta told Kaplan that from then on, Komack left him alone — though he still drew a line at “I’m so confused.”

Welcome Back, Kotter ultimately ran until 1979. By then, Travolta had become a bona fide movie star, thanks to 1977’s Saturday Night Fever and 1978’s Grease.

In his essay, Kaplan detailed many issues he had with Komack during the creation of the show, including Komack’s belief that the “ethnic diversity” of the show’s cast would “be a distraction” and that he briefly wanted to replace Kaplan as an actor. 

But he and Kaplan saw each other one more time in the ‘80s. “We both had a little more hindsight, recognizing we could’ve made things easier for ourselves and everybody else,” he said. He said that if they had let themselves be vulnerable with each other, “We could’ve had as much fun making Kotter as the viewers had watching it.”