'Grease' was almost an animated movie that could have looked like this

The original high school musical celebrates its 40th birthday this June! Released on June 16, 1978, Grease launched the careers of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, and went on to become one of the highest-grossing movie musicals of all time. Adapted from the hit Broadway musical of the same name, written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, the film we know and love almost didn’t happen in the first place. Once the film rights became available, a number of people in Hollywood were interested, the first being writer, director, and producer, Ralph Bakshi, known for the X-rated cartoon, Fritz the Cat . Yahoo talked to co-creator of Grease, Jim Jacobs, who detailed how the movie version might have been very different. “They wanted to do it as a cartoon like Fritz the Cat, and they had certain changes with the script,” Jacobs told us. “I said, how does it end, because Warren and I were kicking each other under the table, they said, ‘Well, Danny Zuko commits suicide.’”