Hairspray
Movie Quote Quiz

Motormouth Maybelle: [to Seaweed and Penny.] Oh, so this is love? [She pauses and then smiles.] Well, love is a gift, a lot of people don't remember that. So, you two better brace yourselves for a whole lotta ugly comin' at you from a neverending parade of stupid.
Penny Pingleton: [Totally serious.] So, you've met my mom?

Edna: Don't worry. He'll figure out some day that he's crazy 'bout you.
Tracy: You have to say that. You're my mother.
Edna: Well, I know a little something about men.

Continuity mistake: When Tracy is running away from the police, there is a shot of her pushing through the crowd until she is free, but the next bird's-eye shot shows her pushing through the marchers all over again. (01:19:55)

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Trivia: As for John Travolta playing Edna Turnblad, that goes back to John Waters having often cast 'Divine' in his movies. 'Harris Glenn Milstead' was an actor best known for performing in drag as 'Divine', John Waters cast him as Edna in the 1988 version. When the Broadway musical was being cast, they cast Harvey Fierstein as Edna Turnblad, and started a tradition of casting a man in the role of the mother, so the movie is just keeping that tradition going.

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Question: One of the lines in "Without Love" states that "Without love, life is Doris Day at the Apollo". What does that mean?

Answer: First I need to explain that the Apollo Theater, an amazing music venue, is in upper Manhattan (NYC), in the predominantly black neighborhood of Harlem. The movie 'Hairspray' takes place in 1962, and at that point in time very few white musical artists had performed at the Apollo (between 1950s and early 60s), and those who did were famous rock-and-roll musicians, such as Buddy Holly and the Crickets (1957). Now as for Doris Day, by 1962 she was a lovely popular American actress/singer, who, as the saying goes, was "as white as white bread", and to imagine someone like Doris Day appearing on stage at the Apollo Theater is an amusing incongruity and just not quite right. So the words "without love, life is Doris Day at the Apollo," means life would just not be right at all without love.

Super Grover

Thank you. My director is making our cast look up stuff we don't know. So as Penny I felt like I needed to know so thank you for cleaning that up for me.

I hope you have fun playing Penny, and that your entire cast and crew enjoy putting on your stage production of Hairspray. Break a leg, sweetie.

Super Grover

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