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There was another instance where an ad for The Shining came on and my older sister hurled me out of the rec room and into the downstairs bathroom keeping the door shut fast over my howls of protestation. With the intervening decades, I do appreciate more the sacrifice made on her part (i.e. dealing with my resultant extended tantrum) and her attempt to protect my delicate sensibility. I ended up seeing the film (albeit on broadcast television) not all that long afterwards and even with commercial breaks and judicious edits, I was fairly creeped out.


Balancing out these acts of "censorship" were those films that my parents felt were either harmless enough or had what the Supreme Court might have concurred were "redeeming social value" and these I was allowed to watch ad infinitum. This list is a heady brew of (mostly) HBO programming that by and large I have felt no qualms about remaining far, far away from in my adult years. To wit:

Camelot (1967), which I watched because it was long, I think, more than anything else. I was obsessed with running times, then (as I am now) and this actually had an intermission where a clock would appear on screen and count down the minutes until the break was over. I recall being enthralled.

Chu Chu and the Philly Flash (1981). Carol Burnett and Alan Arkin as mismatched strangers on the lam from somebody or other.

Honky Tonk Freeway (1981). Beverly D'Angelo and William Devane in a would-be satire on tourism and commerce that ends with a rhinoceros running around on the road.

Foolin' Around (1980). A romantic comedy with Gary Busey and Annette O'Toole. I remember thinking that Busey was very cool, particularly when he had to walk out on a construction girder to retrieve a wedding ring.

Victory (1981). Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine and Pele as WWII prisoners of war who play a soccer match against the Germans as a cover for a POW escape plan. And then they stay to finish the game!

But it was Grease 2 that apparently had some kind of hold on me. I honestly believe I must have watched that close to three dozen times in 1983. Until now, I had been afraid to revisit it, subjecting myself to repeated cycles of incredulity from acquaintances who could not believe that I had not seen Grease (which I finally did at a revival screening three years ago) and that I actually liked Grease 2. Having waited nearly three decades to take another glance at Grease 2, I wondered if any of it would seem familiar, if I would start humming along the words to songs that had been bubbling under the surface of my conscious mind, if I would understand what the appeal had been. The answers it seems are: kind of, emphatically "no" and yes, yes, yes.

Grease 2 opened in June of 1982 (the same weekend as E.T.) and grossed $15 million in about six weeks. That was okay, but weighed against the opportunity cost of an original that grossed more than ten times that and was already a beloved Broadway musical prior to its cinematic incarnation and said film featured two stars at the beginning of long runs of national popularity, well in that perspective, nothing short of Grease 2 curing a global disease was going to make it a hit or make anyone show it some love.

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