Ice Cube wants to do a remake of Welcome Back, Kotter, the 30-year-old TV series with one of the best theme songs of all time. Gabe Kaplan was Gabe Kotter, an old crappy student who returned in adulthood to try to teach unteachable kids who called themselves Sweathogs. Being an ex-Sweathog himself, Kotter's the man to get through to these kids. Vinnie Barbarino (John Travolta) would say things like "up your nose with a rubber hose." Juan Epstein (Robert Hegyes) would bring phony letters from his mother every day. Arnold Horshack (Ron Palillo) would grunt like a monkey whenever he had a question. Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) would smooth talk back when smooth talk meant jive talk. Kotter would amuse everybody with schtick about his uncle.
Cube ain't havin' none of that shit.
The former N-Word.With.Attitude sounds like he's turning it into more of a Dangerous Minds kinda deal, according to what he told MTV. I'm sure Coolio is still available for soundtrack work.
“There’s a script,” the “First Sunday” star said of “Welcome Back, Kotter,” which would bring an urban take to the 70’s TV classic. “We’ve got the same characters, they’re just re-vamped to suit the times, totally different. It’s like, flipped. With me playing Kotter, how couldn’t it be?”
Mr. Kotter won’t be telling schtick-y uncle jokes anymore.
“No, I won’t be going that far,” he laughed. “You know me, I’m gonna flip it. It ain’t gonna be no Gabe Kaplan sh-t.”
The rapper/actor also revealed that they’ve done away with the Barbarino dance, as well as Epstein’s running gag of bringing in phony letters from his mother. “The names will be saved, don’t worry about it. Everybody will have the same name,” he insisted. “To me, it’s still a comedy, but it’s real. It’s more of a ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High,’ not so much ‘Up your nose with a rubber hose’.”
Asserting that he was always a fan of the original show, Cube admitted that it hasn’t dated all too well. “How could I do [the movie] remotely like the series? They’re still Sweathogs, the people that nobody wants to teach,” he explained of the script by “The Hot Chick” writer Tom Brady. “That’s how it was back in the day - I know it was a comedy, but now we’re flipping it for the movie. These are f-ck ups, real f-ck ups, not no [doing a Washington voice] ‘Mr. Kot-ter‘ sh-t. You know what I mean?”
If the movie does go down, however, Cube has every intention of finding the old-school Sweathogs to stand alongside the new ones. “I want everybody. I want Travolta for a cameo, I want Gabe Kaplan for a cameo. I want Epstein, Horshack, Washington,” he insisted. “If they do [make the movie], I want ‘em in.”
On one hand - yeah, give guys like Palillo and Hegyes the chance to show off any chops they might have in different roles. On the other hand, come on, you could easily work in Epstein's notes, at least, in a more 'realistic' context. Kid's only gotta bring in one phony note, Cube Kotter just needs to bite once on the fake, you've got comedy yuks!
Of course, this gets one to thinking - what's the modern-day take on the rubber hose line? Up your ass with a bag of grass? No, nobody calls weed 'grass' anymore. Up your tuchus with some metal hookahs? Up your brown-eye with a bottle of Downy? Up your starfish with a DVD of Arliss? It's wide open for zany hijinks! Let 'er rip!
