Spilling The MarTini: Grease vs. Grease 2

In my first ever solo episode, I go down the rabbit hole of the hill I'm willing to die on, that Grease 2 is better than Grease....which it is. If you think I'm incorrect...just take a listen and prepare to be proven that you are incorrect. 

Cocktail: Beauty School Drop Out

2oz Vodka

1oz Lime Juice

1oz Raspberry Simple Syrup

Topped with seltzer over ice

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome back to making a martini. So this is a new thing that I want to try out. We're gonna see how it goes. It's a little mini episode called Spilling the Martini. Get it? Like spilling like spilling the tea. It's clever, I know. Uh credit to Brianna Woods for giving me the title. So shout out to Brianna. So in this episode of Spilling the Martini, I am going to be going over my reasons for why Grease 2 is better than Grease. If you haven't seen Grease 2, which honestly, in doing this, I have found that most people haven't. But the following out there of those of us who have love it. And if you haven't seen Grease, then I'm not sure you're gonna like this episode. But I'll give a little Grease 2 recap and how all this really came to be, and then I will go over my reasons why Grease 2 is superior. The theme cocktail of this episode is called the Beauty School Dropout, which yes, I know that is a reference to Grease, but um I didn't really feel like going crazy trying to find a Grease 2 cocktail, and I the one I wanted to make was called a Pink Lady, but it has eggs in it, and I don't like that. So I didn't want to make it. So the Beauty School dropout is made up of two parts vodka, one part lime juice, one part raspberry simple syrup, and topped with seltzer over ice. Okay, so that's that's that if you want to play along. So let's get this party started, or let's do it for our country, if you will. So the reason that this all has come to be is back in 2017, Michael Show Walter tweeted that someone needed to look into why younger generations prefer Grease 2 to the incredibly popular Greece. And the internet blew up with people who supported that theory. And then June Diane Raphael from uh Grace and Frankie uh and The Long Shot responded in saying that Stephanie Zanoni, played by Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease 2, is the female hero that women needed in the 80s when the film was released, and goes on to respond by saying that the only true justice uh would be to um or the only justice that Grease 2 deserves would be make some sort of PBS documentary on why Grease 2 is the superior film, which I also support. So if she's listening, I agree. Someone tag her. I guess I could. I don't know how this shit works. Uh, but um, yeah, I think that actually would be really interesting to have a PBS special made about Grease 2, but we'll see. You know, pray on it. Uh so after she started getting involved, um people just started coming out of the woodwork on Twitter um with tweets such as Greece 2 passes the Bechtel test within the first lines of the movie. Um, another one was Sandy is the girl I was, but Stephanie is the girl I was dying to be. That girl has angst. Uh what else here? Oh, reproduction is mostly a class of Rizzos who have no time for slut shaming BS. And for those who don't know, reproduction is a song in Grease 2 that starts out as learning about photosynthesis and plant sex and then uh turns into sex ed. And my favorite one that I saw when I was looking up these tweets was Greece 2 is the Empire Strikes Back of the Grease movies. And to be honest, this has been an opinion of mine for like ever. And I don't want people to think that uh I I hate Greece. I mean, I'm not really, you know, a fan of it, but I I I do enjoy it. It's a musical, I was a music theater person, so I have an appreciation for Greece. I just think that Grease 2 is the superior film. So Greece, uh here's a little synopsis, to kind of, if you haven't seen it, to sort of get your mind in the same place as where mine is. Grease 2 takes place in 1961, so this is two years after Greece ends, and it focuses on Sandy's cousin Michael, who is English, even though Sandy is Australian, but we're gonna look past that for all intents and purposes. Uh Michael moves to America and is going to Riedel High and is met by Frenchie, who has decided to come back to quote, get her degree in chemistry so she can mix her own cosmetics, end quote. Which honestly, that's I think pretty fucking cool that Frenchie was like, Yeah, I dropped out, but now I to do what I want to do, I'm gonna go back and get my high school diploma, but she calls it a degree. I don't know. Maybe Rydell was ahead, but I don't who the fuck knows. Anyway, so Michael, now at Rydell, falls for the head of the pink ladies, Stephanie Zanoni, uh, the Michelle Pfeiffer character, who has just broken up with the main T-Bird, Johnny. See sort of like the quote-unquote replacement, John Travolta. She breaks up with them because she doesn't want to be someone's property, which thusly puts her whole reputation on the line in regards to the pink ladies and their loyalty to the T-Birds. So things happen, life goes on. Michael gets up the courage to ask Stephanie out for a hamburger, which is also the way to my heart, to be honest. And she tells him that she wants a real man, a cool rider, if you will. So Michael decides to do the homework for the T-Birds to make money to buy his own motorcycle so he can impress Stephanie, which he does, but plot twist, he's wearing his helmet and goggles so no one knows that it's him. And if anyone has a problem with that plot point, may I just say that people totally buy that Batman isn't Bruce Wayne, and literally it's just his forehead and his nose that's covered. So if if that if you're like, oh, this movie's so stupid because you could obviously tell it's him, fuck off. You don't belong here. Get out. Uh so this, you know, him becoming this mysterious man starts to drive a rift between Stephanie and the T-Birds. Because not only does Johnny, the John Travolta character, still want Stephanie to be with him, he also doesn't want to be shown up by this guy. And he tells Stephanie that she has to choose what she wants. Because, you know, if she's not going to be with a T-Bird, then she can't be a pink lady. So the whole movie really leads up to the talent show that uh Michael, the mystery man, uh, as the mystery man, tells Stephanie he will meet her there, but the T-Birds see him and chase him off a cliff, leaving Stephanie to think that he's dead. Okay, things escalate. All right, this is a complicated movie. But of course, he's not dead, and he winds up saving the graduation Luau from the gang of motorcyclists that are trying to ruin it. And then Michael is led into the T-Birds when they'll discover it's him, and he and Stephanie get together and everyone graduates, and that is essentially the plot. So, now there's other people involved as well. There's other pink ladies, one of which is Judy Garland's daughter, Lorna Luft. So not Lizamanelli, but whatever. And one of the T-Birds is Christopher McDonald, who everyone should know as you know, Shooter McGavin from Happy Gilmore. He's the villain in Flubber. Uh, and there are some like real song bangers. I mean, like, there's a song about bowling, plant sex, and you know, those reasons alone mean that Greece is superior, or Greece 2 is superior. So, one thing that I want people to understand about my feelings toward this topic is that I think Greece 2, while better, is a completely different entity. The only thing that really connects the two movies is that there are T-Birds and Pink Ladies, and it takes place at Ride El High, and Frenchie is there. The other thing is that the movie Greece is based on the Broadway musical. So, yeah, the musical came first, and then they made the movie semi, you know, based on it. Um, there are a few differences, some pretty big ones, and then some things that I just think are tragic that didn't make it into the movie. Um, one of which, and I think it actually might be my favorite song in Greece, is there's a song called Freddy My Love that's cut from the movie and it's like put somewhere else in the background. Um which sucks. I love that song. And then the Grease Lightning song is actually Kanicki's song, and they gave it to Danny. So, I mean, probably because it was John fucking Travolta, but whatever. Um what else here? Oh, Sandy doesn't go to the dance in the Broadway musical. Uh Danny actually takes Rizzo, and Sandy, I think, shows up like a little bit later. Um, so the villain in the movie, the guy with like the marks all over his face, who also is the villain in Greece too, so he's another character that comes back. But that character is not in the musical, and apparently his name is Leo. I don't know, that's just what IMDB said. In Greece 2, his name is Balmudo, but in Greece 1, he never has a name. I'm I don't know. But he's not in the musical. Um, and let's see here. Oh, hopelessly devoted to you was a song that was put into the movie and replaced another song called It's Raining on Prom Night, which is also a pretty good banger. Um also the drag race with the cars and the carnival scenes are not in the movie, they never happen, they were just added in. Um and subsequently, You're the one that I want was a song that was written for the movie and was not in the musical. They added it in later. And the main title song, Grease, isn't in the musical, also. Um, it was also added in later. So thank you, Frankie Valley, for giving us Grease. So, my theory that Grease 2 is based off of a few major points, and I'm gonna break these down and we'll we'll go from there. So, my first point is choreography. Grease 2 has a ton of choreography, and it's pretty much right off, it starts like right off the bat. The opening song, which is almost seven minutes long, is pretty much dancing the whole time with like small, like you know, little spurts of dialogue throughout. And then it ends with a man jumping through one of the school windows perfectly timed, and he fucking crushes it. It is like the smoothest like little stunt I've ever seen. Well, probably not ever seen, but it's it's a good one. Um, and that's like I said, that's right off the bat. So, but then there's a fully choreographed bowling scene, uh, Michelle Fife for ladder dancing, uh, interpretive sexual uh reproduction movements, and a whole luau, including pom-poms and rain sticks. So choreography was a little, you know, off the charts. And that does make sense because the director of Grease 2 is the choreographer of Grease 1, so I'm sure there was like this, you know, push to have it have a little bit more, but um it does. It has, I think, I think it personally has a lot more and it's a lot more focused. Um Greece, it does have choreography, it's just all a little erratic. The closest thing we really have to like full-blown choreography is the movements that they do in summer nights. Uh, and there's also there is a lot of dancing like in in the Grease Lightning song, but also that it includes a 20 it's 29 seconds of Grease Lightning in the movie is them doing their hair. Okay, so like we get the point. I mean, I get it. Uh then there's like the actual the dance, the national bandstand thing where you know they get tapped on the shoulder, they have to get out, and that is like watching a seizure. I mean, it's it's so crazy and it's erratic, and you can't really focus on anything. And then yeah, it like starts to like you know balance itself out, and like as people start to leave, and then uh you know, the whole Danny Sandy get, you know, they're the last ones, and then Cha Cha takes over. So it's I mean, then it's like a little bit of choreography. And then uh at the end, obviously, in the we go together, there's a lot, and there's people riding rides and all, but that's like the other thing. Like Grease 2 didn't really have a whole lot of Grease 2 didn't have any carnivals, they had a luau and they danced for it. So there's a difference right there. Um so I would suggest to anyone go to YouTube and look up Score Tonight from Greece 2. That's the bowling song. It's also a double entendre for sex, and then look up We Go Together from Greece and decide for yourself. But you know, me personally, I think I'm I think I'm right. The next thing I want to talk about is um the T birds. Okay, so the T-birds in Greece are essentially the heroes of the story, and I put that in quotes, you can't see it, but I did, because we see them as the cool guys who are fun and the epitome of what a high school boy is, and we see how they act throughout the movie, and it actually winds up just sort of being like your stereotypical high school douche, which is fine. I mean, when you look at high school and the hierarchy, you need those those tropes, and I mean, to be honest, and then certain circles, I was kind of a stereotypical high school douche. I might still be. Um but that's you know, kind of just how they were in in Greece, and then in Greece too, the T-Birds are really more of like the comic relief, they aren't really cool at all. It's sort of like they saw Greece and decided to parody it in Greece too, with like how the T-Birds acted. And so the benefit of that is you wind up caring about the characters a little more. At the end of Greece, to be honest, I only really cared about Sandy and Danny. I I didn't even really think to care all that much about Rizzo, to be honest, and I think her storyline is the best one in Greece. But at the end of Greece 2, I have grown to love the characters, and it makes the last song that they have just like a little bit more powerful because everyone sort of winds up in a in a good spot, which they do in Greece as well. It's just I didn't care, to be honest. So yeah, the T-Birds are another reason, and the T-Birds in Greece too. Spot on. Um, another reason is we have the strong female character, uh, sort of versus Olivia Newton-John. So earlier I mentioned that June Diane Raphael said that Stephanie Zanoni is the strong female character that women needed. She is confident, sexually forward, and has more self-esteem than any other pink lady we have seen thus far in any of the movies. And she's just someone who clearly knows what she wants, and she sings about it in her big I want song, Cool Rider. She sings in spells, which is important. Uh, she doesn't believe in, quote, being someone's chick, end quote. And she also works at her father's garage, she does lube jobs, changes tires, because she can. So, I mean, that's pretty fucking cool. We also learned that she can't eat a hamburger without ketchup. So she's a patriot. So she's just, you know, she's the cool one. And she's she was clearly a character that, you know, women at the time that this came out, which she came out in 1982, um, could really look up to because she was she was the cool one. Sandy sort of she whines almost the whole movie. So I was trying to like think about this. To most people they uh meet someone, they have a fling on a beach, and then they meet at the same school, and then that guy is an asshole in front of all his friends. Like that I feel like would just be like a a total deal breaker. That would be it, that would be the end of it to most people. Okay. Uh but it's I mean, really, Sandy and Danny, it's just such a long, drawn out, tumultuous relationship that leads her to ultimately change who she is to get the guy who treated her like shit. If I had a martini for every time Sandy stormed out of a scene, I would be blacked out by the hand jive, and that's a fact, I think. Uh, so it's she's not really the kind of girl you want to aspire to be. Another reason Grease 2 is better. Um and then my my sort of last big point as to why Grease 2 is better is both of them deal with this idea of transformation. So speaking of Sandy changing, who she is, uh that's that's really kind of the the biggest point to me and why I think Grease 2 is is better. In Greece, we have, you know, this journey, right? Sandy and Danny. And Sandy's just such a wet blanket throughout pretty much the whole movie. We saw we see her in the beginning uh sort of getting mauled by Danny on the beach, and she asks him to stop. He says no, and she says, Oh, okay. And then when they are reunited and he acts like an asshole, she gets upset and decides not to talk to him. And then she starts dating the dumb high school jock, and she says that he is such a simple person. So then Danny takes up track and trips and falls, and Sandy takes him back and dumps the jock. And that that that storyline of her dating someone else is like 10 minutes. It's such a quick, like she's such a flake. God, she's the worst. So then um they go to the the dance happens, Danny dances with Chacha, the best dancer at St. Bernadette's, Standy storms out, but then they're at the drive-in, and he tries to give her a ring, he tries to rape her, and she leaves. And then in his song that he sings, like the whole standard of the drive-in Sandy song, there's like a line in there, something along the lines of like, why he was like questioning why she left. It's like, okay, maybe she was, I don't know, trying to avoid avoid the date rape, but whatever. And so they they're they're broken up again. And then Danny wins a drag race, and Sandy decides that that is the reason that she needs to change who she is, and that all happens very, very fast, and then she's in her patent leather outfit and she can smoke. And that's Sandy's transformation. In Greece 2, they switched the gender roles on us, and it's Michael who ultimately makes the transformation, but the journey is totally different. So we discover that he has feelings for Stephanie, he asks her out, she says no, tells him why, that he's not the tall, dark mystery man that she's craving. So he hatches this plan to win her over by buying a motorcycle, learning how to ride it, and then in doing all of that, he kind of becomes a bit of a badass. He saves the T-Birds at a bowling alley rumble and jumps over a cop car. And then he takes Stephanie for a ride on his motorcycle while she's like super crazy busy at work and everyone's yelling at her, and he takes her away from all that. So metaphor, you know, maybe I don't know. And uh he tells her that she'll see him again at the talent show, and then, you know, a few scenes later, he actually offers as Michael to help tutor her on writing her Shakespeare paper, flashback to episode four of Making a Martini, it's all about Shakespeare, if you want to learn. Uh, and she starts telling about this guy who she is crushing on, and she doesn't even know who it is. And he starts to like see that this lie is hurting her a little bit, and he gets upset about the situation. And uh it leads to the ending that I referenced earlier. The bikers come, try to ruin the luau. Michael saves everybody, takes his helmet and goggles off, and everyone's like, Oh my god, it was you all along. And uh, you know, happy ending was had by all. And what really sets us apart is that that whole plot line is like that that is the movie. That's what it's about. It's the guy changing for the girl. She tells him what she wants, and he does it. And it works. And the transformation transformation doesn't really just come out of nowhere. And I think that is why I I I think that's the biggest reason why Greece 2 is better for me. It sets the right example of how relationships really work. I mean we have a character that decides he is going to do what he can to win over the girl that he likes by trying things that she's interested in. And then ultimately he winds up liking it at the end too. And in Greece we have nothing to support the fact that Sandy likes wearing leather pants and smoking. Like at all. So uh so those are my reasons. You may disagree, that's fine. Put it in the comments. Let me know what you think. Um. And if this inspires anyone to watch Greece 2, I would love to hear about that. I think everyone needs to watch it. And if anything, go on YouTube and watch the reproduction song. Because I just think it's important. But uh in all serious, I really do want to hear what you have to think. I I put out an ad saying this was the 2020 debate that you can actually get behind. Because, you know, the bar's pretty low for that, so I I think we can we can accomplish that. So let's debate. Uh thank you all so much for listening to my little mini mini episode. Hope you like the first spilling the martini. If you are a fan of making martini, let us know. Give us a rating and a review, tell your friends. Uh you can officially listen to making a martini on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, Podcast Addicts, Pod Chaser, Deezer, Listen Notes, Player FM, Over uh Overcast, Pocket Case, Castro, and Castbox. So every anywhere you can get a podcast, and we're soon to be listed on Pandora and iHeartRadio. Uh this is the first episode to go live after releasing all five episodes, and uh the overwhelming amount of support is for this is so insane. I mean I had 150 downloads in four days. So thank you all so much. I don't even know what to say, to be honest, other than to keep listening, please. Uh yeah, so thank you all so much. Um that wraps us up. We will see you next time on Making a Martini Up, Dry, and Straight to the Point.