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Alan Sacks, who teamed with stand-up comic and fellow Brooklynite Gabe Kaplan to create the popular 1970s ABC sitcom Welcome, Back, Kotter, has died. He was 81.

Sacks died Tuesday of complications from lymphoma in New York while on a visit there, his wife, talent agent Annette van Duren, told The Hollywood Reporter. He was first diagnosed 22 years ago but spent several years in remission before the cancer returned.

In the 1980s, after a project involving the iconic L.A. band The Runaways never got off the ground, Sacks took the footage and incorporated it into a plot about a director working on a tight deadline to finish a movie starring Runaways member Joan Jett.

The resulting film, Du-Beat-e-o (1984), which he also helmed, was set against the background of the hardcore L.A. punk scene and featured Ray Sharkey and Derf Scratch of the punk band Fear.

He also wrote and...

Film and TV writer-producer Alan Sacks, who had an eclectic career that included co-creating the popular 1970s series “Welcome Back, Kotter” and working on projects set in the 1980s L.A. punk scene, died of complications from lymphoma on Tuesday in New York. He was 81.

Sacks was born in Brooklyn and started his career in the research department of ABC Television. After moving to Los Angeles, he continued working at ABC as a program executive. Along with Gabe Kaplan and Peter Meyerson, he helped develop and co-create “Welcome Back, Kotter,” basing the sitcom on his high school friends in Brooklyn and on Kaplan’s stand-up routine.

He also worked on “Chico and the Man,” created by “Welcome Back, Kotter” executive producer James Komack.

In 1991, Sacks created and produced a Saturday morning children’s show, “Riders in the Sky,” for CBS, which replaced the “Pee-Wee Herman Show.”

During the 1970s and ’80s,...

As an avid child of television, Friday nights were something to look forward to as ABC had the coolest shows from 8-11 p.m. Nestled between The Patridge Family and The Odd Couple was Room 222, more a dramedy than a straightforward sitcom. As school let out in January 1974, the network clearly wasn’t done with classes as just over a year later, they debuted a true sitcom: Welcome Back, Kotter.

The series ran until May 1979, and its superb casting catapulted John Travolta to superstardom. Born from standup comic Gabe Kapler’s routines about his Brooklyn high school experiences, the premise saw Gabe Kotter return to his alma mater, James Buchanan High, this time as a teacher. He was assigned the lowest performing students, dubbed the Sweathogs, of which he was once one.

Filmed before an audience on videotape, it closely resembled the other popular half-hour shows of the era.

A musical that charms even audiences that don’t like musicals, this adaptation of a big 1955 Broadway hit is noted for capturing much of the original’s power and brilliance — more legendary stage performances should be filmed like this, immortalizing theater history that otherwise disappears into the ether. Gwen Verdon, Ray Walston, Russ Brown and star replacement Tab Hunter shine, yet ‘unknown’ Broadway talent Shannon Bolin and Robert Shafer earn just as much applause. The Verdon-Bob Fosse creative hookup is at its strongest here, complete with a show-stopper of a dance duo. Come to think of it, almost every song in this thing stops the show, like one of Joe Hardy’s home runs: Wow!

Damn Yankees

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1958 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 111 min. / Street Date March 16, 2021 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Tab Hunter, Gwen Verdon, Ray Walston, Russ Brown, Shannon Bolin, Nathaniel Frey, James Komack, Rae Allen,...

According to THR, Paramount is currently sitting on three separate Star Trek projects. These include a story created by Legion showrunner Noah Hawley, a prospective Kelvin timeline film and a pitch from The Revenant writer Mark L. Smith with Quentin Tarantino tied to (hopefully) direct the finished script.

For reasons that should be obvious to any film buff, Star Trek fans have gotten most excited about the last of these three projects. Although little is yet known about the script which Tarantino – in the best of all possible worlds – will go on to direct, the industry isn’t completely in the dark about its contents.

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In 1969, The Courtship of Eddie's Father debuted on ABC. Based on a 1963 movie starring Glenn Ford, Eddie revolves around a handsome magazine publisher named Tom Corbett (Bill Bixby). He's a widower and is raising his six-year-old son, Eddie (Brandon Cruz), who often attempts to find his father a new mate. Mrs. Livingston (Miyoshi Umeki), their Japanese housekeeper, helps to look after Eddie and tries to keep him out of trouble.

The show was created and executive produced by James Komack. He also co-starred on the show as Norman Tinker, Tom's best friend and a photographer at the magazine. Komack went on to create Chico and the Man and Welcome Back, Kotter and is credited with launching the careers of Freddie Prinze and John Travolta.

Prior to Eddie, Bixby was already a household name from starring in My Favorite Martian on CBS. He...