On the E! True Hollywood story, Marcia Straussman (Julie Kotter) described how upset she was at being given so little to do on the show. Its too bad that the writers didn't recognize how much this pretty, talented actress could have helped "Welcome Back, Kotter." She could have been an excellent counter-balance to all the crazy antics that occured on the episodes. Who knows? She could have even made it last longer then the 4 years that it was on television.

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They could have done more with she and Kaplan as man and wife on the show instead of all the jokes.... I had forgotten they had twins on the show....too many years ago!

This is an excellent topic because I have also notcied the same thing. There were an handful of episodes when she would just appear in the beginning and end when Gabe was telling jokes. I think she had more to do during the last season of the show. But hey, at least she got second billing.

When she signed on for the show (https://moviechat.org/tt0072582/Welcome-Back-Kotter/58c730895ec57f0478f6477f/Last-Episode-No-Julie), she was a cast member like everyone else, expecting to be in the show as much as everyone else. That's how it was presented to her. But then she was stuck for 4 or 5 years on a show where she had two lines per episode.

Marcia played a wonderful character on an episode of the Love Boat (first season). It's disappointing that she wasn't more of a possible foil to Mr. Kotter. I wish they would have made her an assistant (or secretary) at the high school with Mr. Woodman. It would have been neat to see her siding with the school principal or siding with her husband, Mr. Kotter.

Gabe could have done all his "family jokes" over the phone as the tag scene.

I think she was horribly underutilized on the show.

I have mixed feelings about this. I hated when they used her working at the school to fill in when Gabe disappeared from the show. The show got really dumb when she was used more frequently. What was good about her character and was needed more of was she was the one that grounded Gabe and put him in his place. Many times the sweathogs were just plain silly dumb with their antics and she would stand up to Gabe and the rest of them. That dynamic was needed more of because by the second season all their catch phrases and antics were wearing thin. Gabe was an idiot in many scenes and she was needed to put him in his place.