Episode 1 - It's Only the Beginning

Thank you for listening to Greaseology!

In our very first episode I share some history about Grease the stage musical becoming Grease the movie. Then we begin with the first 5 minutes of the film. I share some history on the Paramount Pictures logo and have a correction - Paramount began in 1912, not 1916. And depending on how you watch Grease (on VHS/DVD or streaming) you may see a slightly different version of the logo.

We discuss the opening beach summer romance scene and how it was slightly different in the shooting script. My apologies again for my poor attempt at properly pronouncing Leo Carrillo.

Finally, I give a breakdown of John Wilson's opening credits animation sequence and discuss every iconic image. Second correction - I mention the "A-WOP-A-LOO-BOP-LOP" portion of the opening credits and noted it was in reference to a Little Richard song, but forgot to mention the song it's from is "Tutti Frutti" (1957). Finally, when I was giving reasons why John Wilson may have included a brief flash of the swastika symbol in his animation, I said the reasons "made sense". I just want to clarify that I do not think a swastika was necessary at all to create shock value and further, I don't think it has any place in my favorite movie.

Next time we will break down minutes 5:00-10:00 of Grease!

Here are the links I mention in this episode:

https://www.randalkleiser.com/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Marie_Reid 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Carrillo_State_Park 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodak_Brownie 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Without_a_Cause 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Pictures 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq7tou6S2YA (Promo for Randal Kleiser’s book, “Grease, The Director’s Notebook”)

https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/grease/ (Read more about John Wilson’s opening credits animation)

https://wehoville.com/2023/01/04/through-the-years-with-barneys-beanery/ (Read more about Barney’s Beanery)

https://youtu.be/Bcd7WLPn214 (John Wilson animation - Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour (1973)

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/12/saturday-night-fever (Read more about the making of Saturday Night Fever)