A drive-in movie theater in the sky – Danny and Sandy already went to a drive-in movie on land, so it only makes sense they would have to follow up with a date several hundred feet in the air. They used the power of repeated hand-jive movements to propel upwards.
It was just a ride at the carnival – It’s like the Magic Carpet Ride, except instead of a boring rug, it’s a sexy little red convertible with room for two.
Whatever ethereal world the song “Beauty School Dropout” takes place in – Frenchy can’t be the only one who gets to hang out with an angelic Frankie Avalon in a beauty parlor slash giant white empty space reminiscent of heaven.
To join the space race – Grease was set in the summer of 1958, one year after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1. The T-Birds spent so much time working on the Greased Lightnin’ car that it must have been a more complicated operation than just swapping out carburetors. They were clearly part of a U.S. government–sponsored group of high schoolers testing the conversion of convertibles into rockets.
Nowhere, it was a grease-induced hallucination – Grease was on Danny’s hands. It was in his hair. It was on the comb he always kept in the pocket of his tight, tight jeans. Eventually, it seeped into his bloodstream, his veins flowing with grease. He was around grease so much, it literally became the only word he knew.
To drag race with airplanes – Once you’ve won every midnight drag race against high schoolers in cars that cannot fly, the next step is clearly to drag races against pilots in airplanes. The only problem is that it’s hard to see the girl waving her bandana through the clouds, so she just has to shout “Go!” really loudly.
Back to 1978 – As we learned in Back to the Future, cars are vehicles for time travel. The entire cast of Grease journeyed back to the 1950s—a real commitment to method acting. When the movie was done filming, Olivia Newton John and John Travolta “drove” back to 1978. And yes, they did abandon all other cast members in the past.
All the way to the Warner Brothers Studio Lot in anticipation of Grease Live! – Fox was really eager about this one, so they just flew the car in directly.