Grease: Live's 10 Best/Worst Moments

grease-live-best-worst-pregnant

If you were crunching your tortilla chips too loudly, you might've missed it. But a brief loudspeaker announcement from Principal McGee (Ana Gasteyer) alerting Rydell to the start of cheer tryouts ended with a sublimely delivered punchline about teenage pregnancy: "We all know nothing makes a cheerleader more nervous than when she's late." Hey, Gasteyer didn't become a household name via SNL for nothing.

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Julianne Hough's reprise of "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" — all alone, with a splash of red lipstick — hit us right in the gut and made us feel true sympathy for the innocent teen who'd just been the butt of the slumber-party joke. We may not love her as a Dancing With the Stars judge, but who knows, maybe Grease will finally transition her from "reality TV personality" to "actual actress."

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You can't blame 'em for trying, but a brief interlude in the principal's office tried a little too hard. "A live broadcast? How exciting! Oh, but what if something goes wrong?" asked Haneefah Wood's Blanche. To which a visiting TV producer replied, "That doesn't matter! The television audience is pretty forgiving."

grease-live-best-worst-danny-doody

We went into Grease: Live excited to see the classic Danny/Sandy moments we all know and love — but we emerged in full support of the Danny/Doody (or "Dandy," as we're now referring to them) relationship which emerged during "Those Magic Changes."

grease-live-best-worst-boyz-ii-men

It's so hard to say "Hello" to yesterday — at least in the case of Boyz II Men's wobbly performance of "Beauty School Dropout." (Yes, this statement is blasphemous — but you also know it is the truth.)

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We're still not sure whether Grease: Live should have done "Sandy" (movie song) or "Stranded At the Drive-In" (musical song), but one thing we're not torn over is this Danny lighting moment. Nothing really mattered after we saw this, to be honest.

grease-live-best-worst-sound

Nope, it wasn't your [bleeping bleep] television letting you down at the most inopportune time. Multiple TVLine staffers are confirming that the sound did indeed (and briefly) drop out during "Born to Hand Jive."

grease-live-best-worst-kether-donohue

You're the Worst's Kether Donohue — almost unrecognizable in pigtails and horned-rim glasses — had us howling with laughter with everything from goofy punclines about recipes from Good Housekeeping to more subtle moments like pointing a harsh finger of judgment at Danny's ne'er-do-well behavior.

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We thought it would be impossible to effectively translate Grease's infamous car-chase scene to a live production — and, honestly, it still is — but we applaud Fox's efforts. (Extra points to whichever staffer thought up with the steering-wheel cam, pictured here.)

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We'd like to extend a special thank-you to whoever outfitted Aaron Tveit. This is, arms down, our favorite kind of gun control.

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