History YMMV / Grease

* ActorShipping: Some fans just can't hide how much they enjoy the chemistry between two of the actors from the 2016 special: Elle [=McLemore=] (Patty), and Creator/NoahRobbins (Eugene). [[https://twitter.com/P0pul4r/status/705818905017585664 Just look at this example]].[[note]]Which Elle "Liked," but, then again, Elle likes a lot of tweets.[[/note]] This was taken UpToEleven during Fox's Easter Sunday 2016 rebroadcast of the special, when the two [[https://storify.com/MHackneyTN/onlyfortvtropes occasionally flirted with each other over Twitter]]. Unfortunately for the shippers, Elle got engaged to someone who wasn't Noah Robbins[[note]]in this case, tennis instructor Josh Levinson[[/note]] just before Christmas 2016.

* AuidenceColoringAdaptation: Following Music/OliviaNewtonJohn's casting in the film, many productions have followed suit and made Sandy Australian.

** We're meant to dislike Patty Simcox and enjoy her seeing her gettin knocked down a peg. This is despite her not doing anything wrong to anyone throughout the show excluding when she gossips about Rizzo's pregnancy. And even then, she did that after Rizzo treated her (and everyone else) like shit and tries to make up afterwards. Again, the TV Special tried to fix this a bit.

** Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey apparently intended for Sandy's change to be seen as her becoming more free and sexually liberated, shedding the '50s "good girl" stereotype, as well as a reversal of the "bad boy becomes good" plot they'd seen in films of that era. The problem is that the rigid and repressing sexual mores that Sandy would be seen as adhering to in the beginning are no longer present in current media and haven't been for a long time; so what should have looked like her liberating herself from society's outdated expectations appeared instead to be her simply conforming to a different societal construct, one now seen as self-destructive, to appeal to her ex boyfriend who's not obviously that nice to begin with. Even within the film itself, Sandy is never ''shown'' to feel pressured by her parents or society to act like an innocent "good girl," but she ''is'' shown to be heavily prude-shamed by the entire cast all film, so it comes off less like her embracing her true self and more like (as stated above) giving into new social mores thrust upon her.

* AwardSnub: "Hopelessly Devoted to You" was nominated, but "Last Dance" from ''Film/ThankGodItsFriday'' won instead.

* BrokenBase: Sandy's transformation. Some see it as CharacterDevelopment, while others see it as an UnnecessaryMakeover. The intended moral was Anti-Conformity, despite the fact that Sandy is just conforming to a different set of societal expectations.

* FirstInstallmentWins: In addition to the movie maintaining a larger fanbase than ''Grease 2'', ''Grease Live!'' remains Fox's best-received live TV musical, by a long shot.[[note]]''Film/AChristmasStory Live!'' and ''Theatre/{{RENT}} Live'' bombed both among critics and in the ratings, with the latter in particular garnering worse viewership than any musical to air live on Fox ''or'' NBC in the New '10s.[[/note]]

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Almost all the songs, especially "Greased Lightnin'," "Summer Nights," & "You're The One That I Want." Quite a few people prefer the songs over the actual movie. Also, "Hopelessly Devoted to You"—despite being the AwardBaitSong, stands out significantly too.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Almost all the songs, especially "Greased Lightnin'," "Summer Nights," & "You're The One That I Want." Quite a few people prefer the songs over the actual movie.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Danny's gang that often acts as jerk or bullies, epecially to Eugene. Normally, in a classic scholastic teen movie, they would be the antagonists. This is averted in the TV special, [[spoiler:where they are much kinder to the point where they welcome Eugene in their group after he helped them win the race.]] While Kenickie earns some points for actually caring about Rizzo, Danny's relationship with Sandy actually makes him come across as worse than them all. Not only does he emotionally manipulate her of Sandy, but he essentially tries to date rape her at one point. Again, the TV Special tried to alter their relationship a bit to avert this.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment:
** The lyrics of "Sandy" took on another tragic meaning when Hurricane Sandy hit the northeastern US in late October/early November 2012.
** "Greased Lightning" can be hard to watch, knowing that Creator/JeffConaway suffered a back injury filming the number that would plague him for the rest of his life and ultimately led to his fatal painkiller addiction.
** The lyrics to ""Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee" originally mentioned Sal Mineo but due to his murder the movie changed it to Music/ElvisPresley. Presley died the day they filmed the song.
* HilariousInHindsight:
** During the "You're the One That I Want," one ride Danny and Sandy dance around is called "Shake Shack." In 2004, a burger joint called [[https://www.shakeshack.com/ Shake Shack]] opened in New York City, soon expanding nationwide.
** The "Oh well, oh well, oh well..." in "Summer Lovin'" sounds an awful lot like "lol" after a while.

* FirstInstallmentWins: In addition to the movie maintaining a larger fanbase than ''Grease 2'', ''Grease Live!'' remains Fox's best-received live TV musical, by a longshot.[[note]]''Film/AChristmasStory Live!'' and ''Theatre/{{RENT}} Live'' bombed both among critics and in the ratings, with the latter in particular garnering worse viewership than any musical to air live on Fox ''or'' NBC in the New '10s.[[/note]]

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Almost all the songs, especially "Greased Lightnin,'" "Summer Nights," & "You're The One That I Want." Quite a few people prefer the songs over the actual movie.

* HypeBacklash: Paramount waited five years after first entering the DVD market to release ''Grease'' in that format. They also apparently spent a lot on advertising, including staging a cast reunion. Unfortunately, fans hoping Paramount put as much effort into restoring the movie and producing bonus features found nothing but an anamorphic upscale of the 1998 restoration, the original trailer, and a handful of interviews dragged over from the 20th Anniversary Laserdisc/VHS. They had to wait four ''more'' years for a DVD with better picture and more extras.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Danny's gang that often acts as jerk or bullies, epecially to Eugene. Normally, in a classic scholastic teen movie, they would be the antagonists. This is averted in the TV special, [[spoiler:where they are much kinder to the point where they welcome Eugene in their group after he helped them win the race.]] While Kenickie earns some points for actually caring about Rizzo, Danny's emotional manipulation of Sandy makes him and even more unsympathetic. Again, the TV Special tried to alter their relationship a bit to avert this.

* JustHereForGodzilla: A lot more people than you might think, care more about the songs than they do the story, the characters and by extension, the message. They're so catchy and upbeat, that it shouldn't be a surprise that they've stayed this popular for so long. Many of them are played free of context so often that younger generations don't even know about the musical they came from.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Danny's gang that often acts as jerk or bullies, epecially to Eugene. Normally, in a classic scholastic teen movie, they would be the antagonists. This is averted in the TV special, [[spoiler:where they are much kinder to the point where they welcome Eugene in their group after he helped them win the race.]] It's also averted somewhat in the cases of Danny and Kenickie, as for all their jerkiness at times, they are shown ultimately to care for Sandy and Rizzo respectively, and each other.

* ActorShipping: Some fans just can't hide how much they enjoy the chemistry between two of the actors from the 2016 special: Elle [=McLemore=] (Patty), and Noah Robbins (Eugene). [[https://twitter.com/P0pul4r/status/705818905017585664 Just look at this example]].[[note]]Which Elle "Liked," but, then again, Elle likes a lot of tweets.[[/note]] This was taken UpToEleven during Fox's Easter Sunday 2016 rebroadcast of the special, when the two [[https://storify.com/MHackneyTN/onlyfortvtropes occasionally flirted with each other over Twitter]]. Unfortunately for the shippers, Elle got engaged to someone who wasn't Noah Robbins[[note]]in this case, tennis instructor Josh Levinson[[/note]] just before Christmas 2016.

* HarsherInHindsight: During "It's Raining on Prom Night", the lyric mentioning Asiatic flu, while referencing a real-life pandemic in the 1950s, can be especially hard to stomach in light of COVID-19.

* AcceptableTargets: Nerds and cheerleaders, apparently.

** The dance contest's rule #1 "All couples must be boy-girl." [[JustifiedTrope On the other hand]], it ''[[DeliberateValuesDissonance is]]'' TheFifties... (and the fact that the school even feels the need to make that a rule [[AlternateShowInterpretation offers some interesting subtext]]). However, those who still take ball-room dance class know this rule all too well.

* WhatTheHellCastingAgency: All of the actors [[DawsonCasting playing teenagers]], ESPECIALLY Creator/StockardChanning.

* DelusionConclusion: One popular theory about Grease is that it's Sandy's dying dream as she drowns on the beach, explaining a few oddities, like Danny claiming he saved her life in "Summer Nights". The ending with the flying car, then, is where she finally starts to suffer from pre-death SanitySlippage. Music/OliviaNewtonJohn thought this theory was quite amusing, claiming it made the film into "the first Zombie musical".

** "Greased Lightning" can be hard to watch, knowing that Jeff Conaway suffered a back injury filming the number that would plague him for the rest of his life and ultimately led to his fatal painkiller addiction.

* {{Misblamed}}: During an Entertainment Weekly interview, Olivia Newton-John once apologized over the only character of color in the film was AlphaBitch Cha-Cha. First of all, the character was probably intended to be Italian, with "Cha-Cha" being a nickname for "Charlene" and her last name being "[=DiGregorio=]." And if we're going by the actors, as Annette Charles was believed to be of mixed Mexican-Sicilian ancestry, Lorenzo Lamas was also of Latino descent.

** “Sandy” was specially written to give Creator/JohnTravolta a solo song, as [[LetsDuet he shares his other songs]] with Olivia Newton-John ([[DistantDuet "Summer Nights"]] and “You’re the One that I Want”) and Jeff Conaway (“Greased Lightning”). The song was written to [[FollowTheLeader capitalize on]] the late-[[TheSeventies 70s]] trend of songs named after young women (such as [[Music/BarryManilow “Mandy”]]).

* ValuesDissonance: Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey apparently intended for Sandy's change to be seen as her becoming more free and sexually liberated, shedding the '50s "good girl" stereotype, as well as a reversal of the "bad boy becomes good" plot they'd seen in films of that era. The problem is that the rigid and repressing sexual mores that Sandy would be seen as adhering to in the beginning are no longer present in current media and haven't been for a long time; so what should have looked like her liberating herself from society's outdated expectations appeared instead to be her simply conforming to a different societal construct, one now seen as self-destructive, to appeal to her ex boyfriend who's not obviously that nice to begin with. Even within the film itself, Sandy is never ''shown'' to feel pressured by her parents or society to act like an innocent "good girl," but she ''is'' shown to be heavily prude-shamed by the entire cast all film, so it comes off less like her embracing her true self and more like (as stated above) giving into new social mores thrust upon her.

** Sonny is noticeably predatory
*** Thankfully, he gets called out for the predatory attitude by Kenickie (flicked on the nose by K's comb after "Could she get me a friend"), by Danny ("Come on, is that all you think about?"), and by Marty when offering her an escort home ("It's not the arms I'm scared of, it's the hands").

* {{Misblamed}}: During an Entertainment Weekly interview, Olivia Newton-John once apologized over the only character of color in the film was AlphaBitch Cha-Cha. First of all, the character was probably intended to be Italian, with "Cha-Cha" being a nickname for "Charlene" and her last name being "DiGregorio." And if we're going by the actors, as Annette Charles was believed to be of mixed Mexican-Sicilian ancestry, Lorenzo Lamas was also of Latino descent.

* {{Misblamed}}: During an EntertainmentWeekly interview, Olivia Newton-John once apologized over the only character of color in the film was AlphaBitch Cha-Cha. First of all, the character was probably intended to be Italian, with "Cha-Cha" being a nickname for "Charlene" and her last name being "DiGregorio." And if we're going by the actors, as Annette Charles was believed to be of mixed Mexican-Sicilian ancestry, Lorenzo Lamas was also of Latino descent.

* Frenchy gets one in the TV version during Doody's song "Those Magic Changes". When he leaves after serenading her, you can see her geeking out in background.