Popularity
The show enjoyed ratings success during its first two seasons, spawning a host of merchandising tie-ins including lunch boxes, dolls, comic books, novels, and even a board game (advertised as "The 'Up Your Nose With A Rubber Hose' Game" in a commercial with a class full of Sweathog look-alikes featuring Steve Guttenberg as Barbarino). The Sweathogs (or at least an impressionist's version of them) even made a crossover appearance with characters from the Happy Days universe on one track (the disco-themed "Fonzarelli Slide") of a 1976 TV-promoted oldies compilation album.
The TV characters' signature lines became enormously popular catchphrases such as Barbarino's "up your nose with a rubber hose" and Washington's deep-voiced "hi there" and Horshack's wheezing laugh. It wasn't long before the previously unknown actors became hot commodities, particularly Travolta, the show's breakout star.
Read more about this topic: Welcome Back, Kotter
Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“Here also was made the novelty ‘Chestnut Bell’ which enjoyed unusual popularity during the gay nineties when every dandy jauntily wore one of the tiny bells on the lapel of his coat, and rang it whenever a story-teller offered a ‘chestnut.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“A more problematic example is the parallel between the increasingly abstract and insubstantial picture of the physical universe which modern physics has given us and the popularity of abstract and non-representational forms of art and poetry. In each case the representation of reality is increasingly removed from the picture which is immediately presented to us by our senses.”
—Harvey Brooks (b. 1915)