Acting Career
As a boy, Kaplan had aspirations of being a Major League Baseball player. However, he was unable to make the roster of a minor league team and decided to pursue other interests. He began working as a bellman at a hotel in Lakewood, New Jersey. Touring comedians would sometimes perform at the hotel, and Kaplan began to work toward his own career as a stand-up comedian. Gabe honed his standup routine in 1964 in places such as the Cafe Tel Aviv at 250 West 72nd Street, New York City. Another successful standup comic who also practiced his routine at the Cafe Tel Aviv was Johnny Yune.
Kaplan's comedy was successful, and he toured the country with his act based on his childhood experiences in Brooklyn. He appeared five times on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson from May 1973 to December 1974. During this period he also recorded the comedy album Holes and Mello-Rolls, which included long routines about his high-school days, among other topics; the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, whose central characters he helped Eric Cohen and Alan Sacks create and whose core format he helped them to develop, was in part based on his comedy act. In the sitcom, Kaplan played Gabe Kotter, who returns as a teacher to the dysfunctional high school where he had himself been a student. The series ran from 1975 to 1979.
From 1976-1978, Kaplan served as team captain for ABC in the Battle of the Network Stars. In 1976, as ABC team captain, Kaplan out-sprinted a disgruntled Robert Conrad in a show-down to determine the final winner. Kaplan passed Conrad with a strong sprint to the finish line, giving ABC television network the win with 175 points.
After Welcome Back, Kotter, Kaplan continued with his stand-up act and was in several movies including a starring role in Fast Break in 1979, and portrayed comic Groucho Marx in a one-man show. In 1981, he starred in the TV series Lewis & Clark, which ran for one season, and served as team captain for NBC in the Battle of the Network Stars in that year.
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