‘Welcome Back, Kotter’ Costars John Travolta, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs Reunite

Welcome back together, John Travolta and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs!

The former Welcome Back, Kotter costars reunited April 18 at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood for the TCM Classic Film Festival Opening Night, which celebrated the 30th anniversary of Travolta’s film Pulp Fiction.

At one point, Hilton-Jacobs sneaked up on Travolta, who was giving an interview on the red carpet, and surprised him. Travolta was delighted to see him and wrapped up his former sitcom castmate in a big bear hug.

Travolta, 70, attended the event with his daughter Ella, 24. Others who came to celebrate the night included Pulp costars Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Rosanna Arquette and Eric Stoltz. 

Lesley Ann-Warren, Dana Delaney, Mario Cantone and Kate Flannery were also in attendance.

Welcome Back, Kotter, which ran for four seasons on ABC from 1975 to 1979, starred comedian Gabe Kaplan as Gabe Kotter, a teacher who lands a job working at the Brooklyn school he attended years prior.

Travolta got his break starring as the charismatic and cocky student Vinnie Barbarino, whose catchphrase “up your nose with a rubber hose” became one of the most memorable and quoted lines from the series.

Hilton-Jacobs played Travolta’s classmate and basketball player Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington.

Travolta found massive success during his time on the show, starring in movies like 1976’s Carrie 1977’s Saturday Night Fever and 1978’s Grease.

When Welcome Back, Kotter ended, he went on to film movies including 1980’s Perfect with Jamie Lee Curtis and Look Who’s Talking with Kirstie Alley in 1989.

But with his role as Vincent Vega in Quentin Tarantino’s gritty Pulp Fiction, which earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination, many saw him in a new light.

Speaking with PEOPLE about how he came to the movie, Travolta said, “It kind of found me more than I found it, because Quentin was such a die-hard fan of mine that he had this fantasy of working with me in something. It wasn’t necessarily Pulp Fiction. It could have been anything. And then, it suddenly found its way into that movie.”