Movie  1988
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Tracy Turnblad: Momma, welcome to the sixties.
Tracy Turnblad: Oh, Link, I wish I had dark skin.
Link Larkin: Tracy, our souls are black, though our skin is white.
Edna Turnblad: Could you turn that racket down, I'm trying to iron in here.
Edna Turnblad: It's the times. They are a-changin'. Something's blowing in the wind. Fetch me my diet pills, would you?
L'il Inez: Segregation never, integration now.
Penny Pingleton: I wish I was at a hootenanny in Harlem.
Penny Pingleton: I'm just a little nervous.
Tammy: This is show business young lady. If you're nervous now, Hah. Wait 'til you're on the air.
Edna Turnblad: Look at your hair. All ratted up like a teenage Jezebel.
Penny Pingleton: But Miss Edna. Tracy's "flamboyant flip" is all the rage. Even Mrs. Kennedy, our First Lady, rats her hair.
Edna Turnblad: But Tracy's no First Lady is she? No siree. She is a... hairhopper.
Velma Von Tussle: And you HAD to pick a colored song, didn't you? What's wrong with Connie Francis? Shelley Fabares? I LOVE Shelley Fabares!
Amber Von Tussle: Mother, Shake a Tale Feather has a wild song. It's got a good beat and you can dance to it.

Beatnik Chick: When I'm high, I AM Odetta. Let's get naked and smoke.
Velma Von Tussle: Relax. Take it easy. Tension is the worst thing for a complexion.
Amber Von Tussle: Tracy Turnblad is a human roach nest.
Amber Von Tussle: Aren't you a little fat for the show?
Tracy Turnblad: I'm sure many of the other home viewers out there are pleasantly plump or chunky.
Amber Von Tussle: Come on. The show's not filmed in Cinemascope.
Prudence: Penny Pingleton, you know you are punished. From now on your wearing a giant P on your blouse EVERY DAY to school so that the whole world knows that Penny Pingleton is permanently, positively, punished.
Tracy Turnblad: Mom. You're so fifties.
Gym Teacher: Special Ed! In the red!
Tammy: Please wait outside. The council will now meet in secret, debate your personality flaws, and come to a final decision.
Amber Van Tussle: Do you relate to the music of Leslie Gore?
Nadine: Look, she ain't no James Brown... but I can dance to Lawrence Welk if I have to.
Geometry Teacher: Tracy Turnblad, once again your ratted hair is preventing another student's geometry education.
Tracy Turnblad: It's feathered, not ratted.
Geometry Teacher: Whatever you call it, it's a hair-don't.
Velma Von Tussle: Hey you. Can I ask you a personal question?
Edna Turnblad: No, you may not...
Velma Von Tussle: Is your daughter mulatto?
Tracy Turnblad: How do you get your hair so - so flat?
Beatnik Chick: With an iron, man. I play my bongos, listen to Odetta, and then I iron my hair, dig?
Wilbur: Tracy, we all have responsibilities in life. You may think owning the Hardy-Har joke shop is all drudgery; unwrapping dribble glasses, checking doggy doo, but I wuv it.
Mr. Pinky: Fatty, fatty, two-by-four. Can't get through the dressing room door?
Amber Von Tussle: That girl's got roaches in her hair!
Edna Turnblad: Roaches? Our little Tracy's a clean teen!
Wilbur: There's no bugs on our baby!
Amber Von Tussle: I'm not kidding, I just saw one!
Motormouth Maybelle: Oh Papa Tooney. We've got a Looney.
Prudence Pingleton: Don't you try to cast one of your voodoo spells on me, native woman.
Motormouth Maybelle: Tidley papa, I am a whopper... Motormouth Maybelle's my name and sweetheart, dancin' is my game.
[Applause]
Motormouth Maybelle: Motormouth, Motormouth, Motormouth!
Velma Van Tussle: At least try to act white on television.
Tracy Turnblad: I'm an integrationist. We shall overcome someday.
Beatnik Chick: Not with that hair, you won't.
Iggy: Would you swim in an integrated swimming pool?
Tracy Turnblad: I sure would, Iggy. I'm a modern kind of girl, I'm all for integration.
Amazon.com essential video
John Waters made his bid for PG respectability with this enjoyably trashy comedy about the racial integration of a teen dance show on Baltimore television in the early '60s. Waters, as always, makes a virtue of junk culture and the powerful emotional forces it can represent as kids vie to get on the show. Meanwhile, a parade of former stars (Pia Zadora, Debbie Harry, Sonny Bono) and pseudostars (Divine, Ricki Lake) cross the screen, playing freakish characters absorbed by thoughts of fame. (Waters himself turns up as a weirdo psychiatrist.) This transitional film for Waters is rough going at times and not as interesting or funny as his later features Cry-Baby and Serial Mom, but it's worth a look. --Tom Keogh