A 'pleasantly plump' teenager teaches 1962 Baltimore a thing or two about integration after landing a spot on a local TV dance show.A 'pleasantly plump' teenager teaches 1962 Baltimore a thing or two about integration after landing a spot on a local TV dance show.A 'pleasantly plump' teenager teaches 1962 Baltimore a thing or two about integration after landing a spot on a local TV dance show.
- Director
- Writer
- Stars
- Awards
- 1 win & 7 nominations
Vitamin C
- Amber von Tussle
- (as Colleen Fitzpatrick)
Jo Ann Havrilla
- Prudence Pingleton
- (as Joann Havrilla)
Alan J. Wendl
- Mr. Pinky
- (as Alan Wendl)
Josh Charles
- Iggy
- (as Josh A. Charles)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaRicki Lake began rapidly losing weight due to the intense dance lessons she had to take for the film. She reportedly had to "eat like crazy" in order to stay plump.
- GoofsIn the closing credits, the 1988 production year is shown in Roman Numerals as "MCMDXXXVIII." It should be "MCMLXXXVIII."
- Quotes
Tracy Turnblad: Oh, Link. This is so romantic. l wish - l wish l was dark-skinned.
Link Larkin: Tracy, our souls are black, even though our skin is white.
- Crazy creditsDuring the ending credits, there are footsteps moving to the beat of the song playing in the background.
- Alternate versionsThe main title credits in the Italian version misspell Ric Ocasek's name as "Rock Ocasek."
- ConnectionsEdited into I Love the '80s (2002)
- SoundtracksHairspray
Written by Rachel Sweet, Willa Bassen, and Anthony Battaglia
Performed by Rachel Sweet
Produced by Kenny Vance
Courtesy of Studio 900 Music, Sweet Rebel Music, and New Line Music
Featured review
1st watched 11/12/2008- (Dir-John Waters): Fun and surprisingly watchable John Waters film about an overweight teen trying to make it on a 50's dance show. Rikki Lake is great in the lead and Divine does a good job as her understanding mother. Despite the filmmakers reputation there are very few gross-out scenes and a good anti-racial theme protecting both overweight people and blacks. The movie has a silly premise and approach but actually does a good job of showing how stupid some of the laws against African-Americans were in the fifties and the sixties. The movie also just flat out entertains and doesn't try to take itself too seriously. I'm actually now looking forward to watching other John Water's films because of this one although I'm sure most of them are not as tame as this one.
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Muévanse todos
- Filming locations
- Perry Hall High School - 8100 Ebenezer Rd, Perry Hall, Maryland, USA(should be 4601 Ebenezer Road, Perry Hall, MD)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $2,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $6,671,108
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $577,287
- Feb 28, 1988
- Gross worldwide
- $6,677,135
- Runtime1 hour 32 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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