User:Billyblunt/Grease

“A Delightful little musicale!”

~ TIME magazine on Grease

“Captain Caveman”

~ Captain Caveman on Grease

“Mmm Mmm, baby cheeks”

~ Queen Latifah on Grease

“Life would chafe without it”

~ Oscar Wilde on Grease

Grease is a Broadway musical set in the mythical land of 1950s America. It was a huge critical and box-office success. In 1977 it was made into a Oscar-winning film.

Plot Synopsis

Fresh-faced, thirty-four-year-old teenager Danny Pitcairn is a student at Rydell High, a special needs school for educationally sub-normal dancers. The shit hits the fan belt one day when Danny flunks lunch. His Russian Orthodox Patriarch father, Norm, is incensed and threatens to send him to the local coal-mining high school, where quiffs and goofing-off are explicitly forbidden. Danny decides to win back his father's trust by building a fast car and racing it against the other neighbourhood thugs in an open sewer. Why he thinks this will help is unclear. Nonetheless, he builds the car (Grease Fisting) and wins the race and the girl, Bandy, a busty Australian cheerleader, who, rumour has it, will put out for a half-share in a bag of peanuts. Predictably, Danny's father is unimpressed. It all ends happily, however, when Pitcairn senior crashes his car driving to the cathedral one day and suffers a debilitating brain injury.

Original Broadway Cast

• Danny Pitcairn - John Travolta
• Bandy Dingo - Ron Jeremy
• Patriarch Norman Vasily Pitcairn - Dolph Lundgren
• Howard Hughes - Denis Leary
• Marty, Duchess of York - Barbara Bush
• Old Gobbo, school soothsayer - Tom Petty

Soundtrack

• Is That a Carburetor In Your Pocket?
• Fifteen Goin' On Fifty
• Jeez Us Cry Stall My Tea
• No, it's my finger
• Flunk-a-delic
• Pumping Gas (On Your PJs)
• Homo-erotic Delusion
• Aussie Windsock
• We Goat Whoever

Trivia

• In the 1977 film adaptation of the play, John Travolta's dialogue, his singing and all his physical movements (including facial expressions) had to be performed by doubles at huge expense to MGN. The film's director, John Ford, complained that Travolta was "...unable to follow the simplest instruction, like make sure you're inside the goddamn car before attempting to sit down. I don't know much goddamn film we wasted trying to nail that scene. Jesus." Despite these shortcomings, Travolta still received the 1978 Academy Award for "most compelling flesh brand".

• The leather jackets that feature heavily in the film were actually manufactured from carved ham due to actress Olivia Newton John's cow allergy.