Stockard Channing reacts to that awful Rizzo illustration in the opening of “Grease”

Raechal ShewfeltThu, August 27, 2026 at 5:30 AM UTC

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Stockard Channing and the Rizzo cartoon from ‘Grease’Credit: Simon Ackerman/Getty; ParamountKey Points -

Grease star Stockard Channing acknowledged that she isn’t a fan of that cartoon of her character in the 1978 movie’s opening.

Channing played Pink Ladies leader Rizzo.

The actress said she’s only seen the beloved musical movie twice.

Grease is the word, but maybe not the picture?

Stockard Channing, the actress who plays Rizzo, the leader of the Pink Ladies, in the 1978 crowd-pleaser, agreed with an ET interviewer who suggested that she was “done a little bit dirty” by the cartoon of her character in the movie’s partly animated opening.

Channing called out “my cheeks,” before she was shown the image again.

“Well, I felt the same way,” she lamented. “That’s even worse than I remember. Look at that!”

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Dianne Wiest, who was on hand to promote Practical Magic 2, genuinely asked, “How could they do that? Who did that?”

Wiest then instructed her costar in the witchy sequel to “do a little spell on that person.”

Channing pretended to send a quick spell.

The star of projects including The West Wing, The First Wives Club, and Heartburn then acknowledged that she had only seen the movie twice.

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“One was in the opening at Grauman’s Chinese [Theatre],” Channing said. “And I do agree that cartoon was unfortunate. It was my nightmare vision of self. And the second time, I saw it 20 years later. Also at Grauman’s Chinese.”

The Hollywood landmark, which has long been the location of many a premiere, is now named the TCL Chinese Theatre.

Channing has worked hard to avoid the musical featuring the Pink Ladies and the T-Birds, which still, more than four decades later, seems to regularly be on somewhere.

“I do not watch it. That’s it. I’m afraid,” the Emmy winner said. “I’m very proud of it, but I don’t watch it.”

Along with that animated opening, Grease featured a lot of rockin’ music that made its soundtrack one of the best selling of all time.

The cast of ‘Grease’ during a diner sceneCredit: CBS via Getty

Also starring John Travolta, the late Olivia Newton-John, Didi Conn, and more, the story depicted the students beginning a new year at Rydell High School, with Travolta’s Danny surprised to learn that new girl Sandy (Newton-John) is the girl he spent his “Summer Nights” with.

Channing is promoting the sequel to her 1998 movie Practical Magic, in which she starred with Wiest, Sandra Bullock, and Nicole Kidman. She and Wiest reprise their roles as aunts to sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, played by Bullock and Kidman, who are struggling to find love. Their family heritage dictates that any man an Owens woman truly loves will die an untimely death.

Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest in ‘Practical Magic’ (1998)Credit: Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett

In the sequel, which is set 25 years later, “the family is plunged into a multi-generational struggle to finally break the curse that has haunted their lineage for centuries,” according to the official description. “Sally, Gillian, and their aunts must once again unite, traveling from their home in Massachusetts to the United Kingdom to confront the source of their magic and save the next generation of their family.”

Practical Magic 2 arrives in theaters Sept. 11.

on Entertainment Weekly

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