Question: did they ever show the gooch on different strokes

Answer: No, An oft-mentioned character, spanning the entire show's run, was ``The Gooch'', a notorious bully at Arnold's school. First mentioned in the first-season episode ``The Fight'', which revolves around his bullying of Arnold, his name is mentioned in numerous episodes (and his bullying of Arnold returned as the center of several plots), with Arnold's frequent descriptions of him to be of a burly, troublesome brute, forever looking for trouble but not very intelligent, but the character never actually appeared on screen. In season 7, after years of harassing Arnold (and later Sam), the Gooch was finally defeated by Arnold's neighbor and nemesis Carmella.