Improv Welcomes Back Mr. Kotter : Comedy: Gabe Kaplan, who’s made big bucks in business, doesn’t need stand-up. But he’s still got jokes to tell--and will do it in Brea.

Gabe Kaplan is perhaps best remembered as Mr. Kotter, as in “Welcome Back, Kotter,” the hip teacher who taught his misfit sweathogs a thing or two about history and life. And like most good teachers, Kaplan is always happy to see a former student prosper.

So when John Travolta landed a starring role in last year’s “Pulp Fiction,” which reinvented his career, Kaplan couldn’t have been happier.

“It’s good for him he got the right part and made the most of it,” Kaplan said in a phone interview last week. “Quentin Tarantino liked him as Vinnie Barbarino. Tarantino was always a fan of his. But I’m sure it’s not all because of ‘Welcome Back, Kotter.’ I’m sure he also saw him in ‘Saturday Night Fever’ and ‘Grease.’

“I don’t think that anyone else at this point would have thought of Travolta. I haven’t spoken to him in maybe 10 years. We had seen each other a few times, but we just went our own ways.”

Kaplan’s way would eventually be the world of finance and investments.

“In show business, you had levels,” said Kaplan, who also made a name for himself winning $200,000 in the “World Series of Poker” in Las Vegas in 1980. “I was at the top of the TV end of it. I would’ve had to get back there [after ‘Kotter’]. I could’ve always worked shows, clubs, Las Vegas and Atlantic City, but I was successful in business ventures, and things weren’t happening in show business, so I said let me see what I can do.

“Maybe I just wasn’t a show-biz type. I didn’t miss performing at all. I had created ‘Kotter,’ and I didn’t want to create another show. I wanted to put that energy someplace else.”

So when “Kotter”--modeled after Kaplan’s own high school days in Brooklyn--left the air in 1979, the actor-comedian dabbled in entertainment before chucking it to focus on the financial ventures he had started during the show’s run. His new road took him “big” into stocks, commodities, options, real estate and getting firms ready to go public. “I was all over the financial spectrum,” he said, adding that business now is pretty much taking care of itself.

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Last May, when Nick at Nite added “Kotter” reruns to its evening lineup, Kaplan was presented with the perfect re-entry into entertainment. The cable channel wanted him to tour to promote the show with a couple of former sweathogs, Robert Hegyes (Juan Epstein) and Ron Palillo (Arnold Horshack).

“We met with the advertising people in L.A., New York, Detroit, Chicago, Dallas,” Kaplan said. “I’d get on stage and talk about ‘Kotter,’ tell a few stories. Palillo would be in the audience and go, ‘Oooo! Oooo! Oooo!’ ”

It was during the promotional tour that Kaplan, who performs at the Brea Improv tonight through Sunday, started seriously pondering another shot at show biz.

“It felt good to get back up there and talk,” said Kaplan, who has done four club dates so far, including a trip to Cincinnati after Thanksgiving. “I’d been watching comedians on all the shows on TV, and no one was talking about things that everyone can relate to. It was young guys doing mostly one-liners about people who are 20 or 30 years old--not really talking about anything that had to do with midlife crises or things we go through at 50. I saw a real opportunity. There’s a lot of humor there. I’m not saying I can do it, but I’m going to see. I was getting a little tired of financial stuff, so I figured I’d take a few months and see if the spark is still there.”

Having “Kotter” back on TV also revives some good memories for Kaplan, who spends much of his time these days at his Beverly Hills mansion with his 5-year-old daughter, Rachel, from a former relationship.

“What generally happens is you’re looking at [the show] from a different perspective because you were part of it. I remember the little things that happened around the cast for that episode: who wanted more jokes, more to do; who wasn’t happy; what the script was like at the beginning of the week. Things like that. I would say we had fun on the set. There was a real good chemistry and freedom to create. Everyone had their conception of their character.

“Travolta is really funny and childlike. One of my proudest things now is I have a better body than Travolta.”

Before he created that cast of characters, Kaplan was a top stand-up comedian whose style was stringing together five- to six-minute pieces connected by a premise. For his Brea shows, he’ll talk a bit about the old show and work some old and new material into his storytelling style.

“Basically I want to do something about my age and political and economic situation and how everything has been changing . . . a look at the state and quality of life from a 50-year-old.”

Before he became a comic, Kaplan had serious designs on being a big-league baseball player. He was a high school standout but discovered professional competition was tougher than he had imagined. Two years later, he gave up and worked as a bellboy in New York’s Catskills. That segued into show biz when he started telling a few jokes on stage.

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He didn’t totally abandon the diamond, however. Over the years, he played some softball and remembers, given recent events, one particularly memorable contest. It was in the early 1980s and he was filling in on a team of actors playing pro athletes.

“I had a crash at home plate with O. J. Simpson,” Kaplan recalled with a laugh. “It was a real game, not a benefit. O. J. tried to score on a sacrifice fly, and I was catching. But he didn’t come in as bad as he could have. He wanted to score, but he didn’t really barrel into me.”

Kaplan even remembers the call.

“He was safe.”

* Gabe Kaplan performs today, Thursday and Sunday at 8:30 p.m., Friday at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. and Saturday at 8 and 10:30 p.m. at the the Brea Improv, 945 E. Birch St., Brea. $10-$12. (714) 529-7878.