Grease 2

"Whoa whoa, I gotta go...Back to School...AGAIN!"

The new kid Michael is a nerd. A hopeless nerd! And furthermore, he's in love with Stephanie, who as a Pink Lady can only go with a T-Bird. Naturally, the solution is to find out what she wants in a man and become it, regardless of cost or effort. But Michael succeeds so wildly he ends up upstaging the T-Birds, impressing the whole school, and becoming so awesome that Stephanie starts to question whether she wouldn't rather just have the normal nerdy guy who keeps helping her with her essays. When Michael finally reveals his true identity, he gets the girl and the acceptance he so craves. Hooray!

Even those who took the original seriously might have trouble with this one. Song topics include plant reproduction (which is really sex), going off to war to become a man (which is really sex), and the moral flexibility of the women one meets at the grocery store (which isn't even disguised). Also features a talent-show act with girls trying to act sexy while dressed as Christmas trees and jack-o'lanterns, and almost every instance of informed or designated anything.

A delightful source of Narm, and considered by many to be So Bad It's Good. This was Michelle Pfeiffer's breakout role, but the only other actors you will recognize are Christopher McDonald, Rex Manning as the male lead, Maureen Teefy, Lorna Luft and Pamela Segall in her first screen role, along with the actors who reprised their roles from the first movie.


 * All Girls Want Bad Boys: "Cool Rider". Michelle Pfeiffer's character somehow resists the charms of the sweet British boy, because she's "...lookin' for a dream on a mean machine/ With hell in his eyes/ I want a devil in skin tight leather..."
 * Bad Girl Song: "Cool Rider" also has elements of this.
 * Badass Biker: What Stephanie wants in a man, therefore Michael aims to become one.
 * Biker Babe: What the Pink Ladies claim to be, but only Stephanie really is.
 * Butt Monkey: Eugene.  For the second movie in a row.
 * Cold War: Invoked during "Let's Do It For Our Country".
 * Cool Bike: Michael's "Cool Rider" bike.  And he built it himself in a cave, with a box of scraps out of parts from a junkyard, without knowing how to when he started.  Then taught himself how to ride it and do stunts on it.
 * Cool Mask: Michael's helmet.  It covers enough of his face that, with a little change to his voice, he is unrecognizable to Stephanie (who has socialized with him enough that she should recognize him otherwise).  He even has two Dramatic Unmasks -- one aborted by the sudden appearance of the T-Birds, the other after he saves the day at the Senior Luau.
 * Creation Sequence/Training Montage/Time Compression Montage: All three blended together as we watch Michael build his motorcycle, learn how to ride it, and watch the girls slowly assemble their act for the talent show, all in the same sequence.
 * Crowd Song: "We're Gonna Score Tonight", "Who's That Guy?", "Rock-a-Hula Luau".
 * Dawson Casting: Grease 2 is almost as bad as its predecessor here:  most of the core cast were in their late twenties or early thirties, although Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer were closest to real teens, being 23 and 24 respectively.  Even Pamela Segall was 16 playing 12-13ish (although very convincingly so).
 * Delinquents: Although the T-Birds act like big, tough bikers, they're much closer to posers.  However, Balmudo's gang is the real thing.
 * Disney Acid Sequence: The "Turn Back the Hands of Time" number, which takes place when Stephanie apparently spaces out in the middle of the talent show and imagines singing a duet with the spirit of her Mysterious Protector in what we can only take to be Biker Heaven. Except that when Stephanie returns to reality at the end of the number, the audience is applauding and she's won the talent show, leaving us to wonder if they all somehow experienced the whole sequence with her. And, if not, then who was really singing the male part of the duet while she was tripping out?
 * Disney Death: After Michael leaps into the darkness at the bridge, he disappears completely from the movie for its last third, not counting Stephanie's dream sequence during the talent show.  We don't know if he actually made the jump or not until he reappears at the climax of the film.
 * Dramatic Unmask:
 * After taking Stephanie for a long ride during which they presumably connect on a deeper level, he's about to reveal who he really is when the T-Birds show up and threaten him.
 * He gets to actually do the full unmask in front of the entire senior class plus the faculty after he saves the Senior Luau from Balmudo's gang.
 * Forbidden Fruit: Pink Ladies can only go with a T-Bird. Anyone else better not even look.
 * Franchise Killer: The failure of this prevented further Sequelitis. There were studio plans of having at least three more sequels and a TV series, but they were instantly scrapped after Grease 2 bombed.
 * Guilty Pleasures: Wholly guilty.
 * Happily Ever After
 * High School Hustler: What Michael becomes to finance being the "Cool Rider" -- while somehow remaining a nerd in the eyes of the T-Birds.  Bonus Points for getting Johnny and his gang to fund everything Michael needs.
 * Hood Ornament Hottie: What most of the Pink Ladies are for the T-Birds, Stephanie being the only exception.
 * Hula and Luaus: The end-of-year Senior Party has a "Rock-a-Hula Luau" theme.
 * "I Want" Song: "Cool Rider".
 * Magical Realism: Stephanie's hallucination of the "Cool Rider" as a "Teen Angel" type.
 * Malaproper: Johnny Nogarelli, whose verbal garbling produces gems such as turning "menstruation" into "mentalstration".
 * Marilyn Monroe: Paulette models herself on Marilyn, right down to the voice and the walk.
 * New Transfer Student: Michael.
 * No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Averted by Michael, who creates the "Cool Rider" persona in order to entice Stephanie into chasing him.
 * No One Could Survive That: When the T-Birds chase Michael (as the "Cool Rider") into leaping his bike out over a demolished bridge, this line is uttered word-for-word.
 * Shallow Love Interest: Stephanie
 * Took a Level In Badass: Michael takes one. Naturally.
 * Triang Relations: Type 10:  Johnny (b) wants ex-girlfriend Stephanie (c) back although she is no longer interested in him.  At the same time, he is also dating Paulette (a) who very much reciprocates his interest.
 * Vindicated by Cable: Although a flop in the theatres, it developed a following on cable during the 1980s.
 * You Don't Want to Die a Virgin, Do You?: Intentionally invoked and set to music, with the song "Let's Do It For Our Country". One of the guys brings his girlfriend down to the bomb shelter, where a confederate sounds the bomb siren to make her think it's The End of the World as We Know It. Cue an incredibly Narmful song where she sings about volunteering for the war, contrasting with his rather less patriotic intentions. Then she realizes the siren has stopped, opens the shelter door, and trips over his friends listening at the door.
 * Wrench Wench: Stephanie, surprisingly.  She actually works at a garage when not in school or going on long rides with mysterious bikers.