Rewatchables Reference

• Bill: 'You're the One That I Want' and the last 11 minutes of the movie – Sandy's transformation and the finale.
• Juliet: 'Summer Nights' – the bleacher choreography, the split screen, one of the most iconic scenes she's ever seen in a movie.
• Amanda: 'You're the One That I Want' is number one, the entire bandstand/hand jive sequence is number two.

• The opening credit sequence with Barry Gibb singing 'Grease'.
• Sandy's virginal clothes – the little yellow outfits, sweaters on shoulders.
• Travolta's hair combing woven into different scenes.
• The 1950s nostalgia wave the movie rode – American Graffiti, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Animal House.
• 'Hopelessly Devoted to You' being shoehorned in after filming and actually working.
• Patty Simcox as a prototypical annoying high school character that's been ripped off many times since.
• Dance-offs in movies – Grease is Apex Mountain for dance contests in film.

• Olivia Newton-John's movie career after Grease – if the 1990s rom-com infrastructure had existed, she could have had a great run.
• Grease 2 – even if it gave us Michelle Pfeiffer.
• Rizzo not being likable – 'She's not nice. She's very cold. Only vulnerable when singing alone.' (Juliet's hot take).
• Looking under girls' skirts on the bleachers.
• The lack of diversity.
• Jan's entire personality being 'eats a lot'.
• The car race looking incredibly slow in the era of F1 and Fast & Furious.

• Linda Ronstadt was seriously considered for Sandy.
• Carrie Fisher, Susan Dey, and Marie Osmond were also considered for Sandy.
• Lucy Arnaz was supposed to be Rizzo before Lucille Ball torpedoed it.
• Henry Winkler turned down Danny Zuko because it was too close to the Fonz.
• Elvis Presley was being considered for Teen Angel but died as they started making the movie.
• Harry Reems (Deep Throat) was originally signed to play Coach Calhoun before Paramount nixed it.
• Lorenzo Lamas replaced Stephen Ford (Gerald Ford's son) who got stage fright.
• Bill called this 'the greatest section of casting what-ifs in 249 Rewatchables'.

• The ages of the 'kids' – Stockard Channing was 33, Michael Tucci 31, Jamie Donnelly 30.
• Sonny (Michael Tucci) legitimately looks like he's 40.

• Amanda: Sandy looked better before the makeover – doesn't like the perm.
• Juliet: Rizzo sucks – she's not nice, very cold, only vulnerable when singing alone, more akin to Regina George.

• Bill: Vince Fontaine (the National Bandstand host) – openly hitting on high school kids.
• Juliet: Didi Conn as Frenchy – 'I'm always very aware of the Didi Conn moments'.
• Amanda: The T-Birds – 'calm down'.

Didi Conn as Frenchy – she became Frenchy forever, you can't hear anything else.

• Juliet: Blanche – after she's dragging Tom along in the dance scene.
• Bill: Patty Simcox – not a lot to work with but she did a lot with it.
• Amanda: Patty Simcox as well.

• Bill: Craterface should have been recast with someone like Richard Gere or Tom Berenger.
• Juliet: Jeff Conaway could have played Craterface instead of Kenickie.
• Bill: Carrie Fisher as Rizzo – gritty, badass, coming off 'Star Wars'.

• The director moved the setting from Chicago to LA because he was from 'Philadelphia'.
• Olivia Newton-John was sewn into her leather trousers – Sarah Blakely (Spanx founder) won them at auction.
• There's a deleted Rizzo-Kenickie argument scene described as 'looking like something Martin Scorsese would have directed'.
• A closing kiss scene between Danny and Sandy was lost – only exists in black and white.
• Jeff Conaway was so infatuated with Olivia Newton-John he married her sister Rona.

• John Travolta – could have made literally any movie after this, instead chose Moment by Moment with Lily Tomlin.
• Olivia Newton-John – yes, this is her apex.
• Robert Stigwood – 'Saturday Night Fever' then Grease back to back, owned all soundtrack rights.
• Nostalgia for the 1950s – Grease is the capstone of the whole '50s nostalgia wave.
• Extreme makeovers in movies – Sandy's transformation.
• Dance contests in movies – yes.
• Drive-in movie scenes – yes.

• Really fast nine months – the entire school year zips by in about two days.
• Danny sees Sandy at school and immediately humiliates her to impress his friends.
• Danny lets Cha Cha replace Sandy at the bandstand dance.
• Some of the lip-syncing is comically off.
• The ending: if Sandy didn't die, why does the car fly into the air like a spaceship?
• Travolta's terrible smoking – clearly never smoked.
• The football and basketball scenes – nobody who made this movie had ever seen sports.
• Nobody came to the car race – if these were the two most popular groups, shouldn't there have been 100 people?

• The 'Sandy is dead' theory – she has a water accident in the opening, everything else is her dream, and the car flying at the end is her ascending to heaven.
• What were the Pink Ladies exactly? Did they have fights? How did you get in?
• Is 'There Are Worse Things I Could Do' (Rizzo's song) about abortion?
• Did Danny and Sandy have sex at the beach?

All-Black cast remake would be really interesting – would present a different, potentially more interesting picture of the 1950s.

Travolta – unanimous agreement.

• Bill and Juliet: 'Saturday Night Fever' (Grease first for the light, then the dark).
• Amanda: Dirty Dancing – occupies a similar dance-movie VHS-rewatch phenomenon.

• Bill: The movie-worn Travolta T-Birds jacket.
• Juliet: The T-Bird jacket, but also loves the varsity sweater Travolta wears at the end.

• You have to be a bad girl to keep your man happy.
• There are worse things you could do than sleep with a guy or two.

Travolta. Amanda noted Olivia Newton-John also really benefits and it stayed with her whole career, but Travolta won it.

Craig Horlbeck loves Grease – 'sneaky movie musical guy.' Said Travolta is 'ridiculously charismatic' in a way he doesn't see in modern actors.

The very beginning of 'You're the One That I Want' – the little guitar twang when Sandy comes around and Danny sees her.

• Bill: The split screen at the end of 'Summer Nights'.
• Juliet and Amanda: Olivia Newton-John sitting on the LA River alone during 'Hopelessly Devoted to You'.