Word: barbarino
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...racial incident in the predominantly Italian neighborhood of Bensonhurst in Brooklyn. But he pinpoints the real birth of the Guido subculture to the 1970s. If the movement has any guiding icon, it's young John Travolta and his many incarnations: Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever, Vinnie Barbarino in Welcome Back, Kotter and Danny Zuko in Grease. Today, there are message boards for self-described Guidos and Guidettes to chatter (www.njguido.com). "It's a way to be a part of popular culture for kids who aren't invited to the party," Tricarico says. "It is defiant. It's identity politics...
...rose quickly through the ranks: Broadway debut at 20 in the World War II musical Over Here!, the lead role in the Broadway Grease at 21, TV fame as sexy Vinnie Barbarino on Welcome Back, Kotter at 22. Then the Fever struck. Travolta radiated old-time star quality in his first major film role; he had the strut, the moves and the blinding white suit to be a disco dreamboat. Six months after Saturday Night Fever, which had a boffo domestic box office of $94 million, came Grease, which earned twice that...
...poignancy to a one-joke character. Admittedly, it's often a great joke, as when Drama brags about having been on "Blue"--it turns out he means not NYPD but Pacific Blue, the mid-'90s show about buff bicycle cops. Grenier, likewise, gives Vince a sweet, dim Vinnie Barbarino appeal. Vince doesn't read scripts--even for the movie he just made--but he seems savvy enough to know the utility of his dumbness...
...potential for a New York subway ride to become a veritable sing-along. There, one can actually "Take the A Train," and it's great fun to sing the "Welcome Back Kotter" theme song while entering Brooklyn. The trouble, of course, is the bevy of thugs (meaner than Vinny Barbarino) and wayward youth who scare timid passengers, especially tourists, into silent submission. Nevertheless, the subway's filth fairly represents the less attractive features of city life. If Jefferson and Hamilton had had to ride the New York subway to work every day, we might all be living on the farm...
...reader remembered that "TIME once described a TV character from the '70s as 'a human oil slick.' Who was that character?" The Fonz? Vinnie Barbarino? Nope. The slickster was J.R. Ewing of Dallas, as depicted in a 1980 cover story. Another recalled a photograph in TIME of two Peruvian surgeons, Drs. Francisco Grana Reyes and Esteban Rocca. "The content of the story," said the reader, "was about a modern-day brain operation using ancient tools from the Mayans." Did we run that? Yes, indeed...