If not for her...

Growing up in the '70s and '80s, Olivia Newton-John was part of the fabric of our lives. In the mid-'70s, the British-born Australian chanteuse's songs were everywhere on the radio, on the pop stations the Sestras listened to and on the country station Mom turned on whenever we were in the car. "If Not for You," "Let Me Be There," "If You Love Me (Let Me Know)," "I Honestly Love You," "Have You Never Been Mellow" and "Please Mr. Please" were tunes we knew as well as the informative ditties on Schoolhouse Rock. In 1978, Grease indeed was the word. Don't know how many times we saw the all-time biggest grossing movie musical, but Mom bought the soundtrack LP and many hours were spent in the bedroom trying to figure out why the dialogue in the fotonovel did not match what was said in the movie. Xanadu was considered a flop, but we loved it too, as it was released in the time when hanging out in roller rinks was part of the social scene. Totally Hot was one of the first albums Sestra Paige remembers buying. And then MTV landed in 1981, and "Physical" took over. It was No. 1 for about a billion years (actually 10 weeks, but it was the top song of the '80s).

But it wasn't until later that we realized what a gem Olivia really was to the world. She canceled a concert tour to protest the slaughter of dolphins. She became a spokesperson for many causes, including UNICEF and the United Nations' environment program, and when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she never ceased to try to continue raising awareness through her participation in so many different programs and agencies. The reason why her participation was so crucial was because everyone respected Olivia. Even if her music wasn't your bag, odds are you appreciated her. Over the years, that's been evident on the pop culture front. Moviemakers, show runners and musicians still tap into that easy, breezy Olivia feel that paints a picture quicker than pages and pages of dialogue. Everything from Lost to The Simpsons (twice) made use of her magic. With that in mind, the Sestras picked out 10 of our fave ONJ-flavored moments from movies, TV and music.

Sestra Leah

I Honestly Love You -- Jaws (1975)
I have seen Jaws A LOT. I let it run in the background when it’s on TV. Sestra plays it whenever I visit. We repeat so many lines for comedic value, but over the years, I still managed to miss something. (Don’t you love when that happens?) I recently rewatched the scene of Chief Brody and wife Ellen enjoying their day at the beach moments before poor Alex Kintner becomes a bloody geyser of horror. I was this many years old when I heard Olivia’s "I Honestly Love You" playing on a transistor radio in the background of their conversation. How have I never heard that before? (The Daily Jaws knew, of course, and the site recently featured the song's inclusion in tribute to Olivia.) And the tune really sets the tone for the timeline in the movie. I – or you -- probably heard that very same song playing on a radio at the beach or pool when we were kids, and it’s such an innocent prelude to what is about to happen. Good call, music supervisor.

 

Over the Rainbow – Face/Off (1997)
Everybody knows John Travolta and Olivia starred together in Grease. Fewer people know they had a second movie together called Two of a Kind. But there are other projects to which both contributed. Like in Face/Off, starring Travolta and Nicolas Cage. Sure, Olivia didn’t act in this one, but it’s her angelic voice you hear singing a rendition of "Over the Rainbow." The pivotal scene involves a slow-motion shootout in which Cage – as Travolta’s character, I believe. I really should watch this whole movie someday – and Gina Gershon, the kid’s mother, are trying to keep her kid calm amongst all the carnage. They play Olivia’s song over the boy’s headphones while they try to escape. It works, even if the plot sounds more far-fetched than Danny and Sandy flying a car into the clouds or angels using two thieves to decide the fate of the human race.

Hopelessly Devoted to You – Pushing Daisies Season 1/Episode 2 (2007)
Who would be brave enough to try and out-Sandy the one and only ONJ? Why, Wicked’s Kristin Chenoweth, of course. Kristin played Olive Snook on ABC’s short-lived, but charmingly creative series Pushing Daisies. Olive was in love with her boss, Ned, who was in love with his childhood friend Charlotte (aka Chuck). Olive's unrequited love storyline was established in the series premiere, but for the second episode, Kristin drove home the point by singing about her woes to formerly dead dog Digby, while dealing with intruding, wannabe customers and swaying with the restaurant’s floor buffer. You can really feel Olive’s pain through the absurdity of the scene, and Kristin recently shared hers about the loss of Olivia on Instagram.

We Go Together – The Big Bang Theory Season 5/Episode 17 (2012)
Grease was the word when the female characters on The Big Bang Theory – Penny, Amy and Bernadette – watched the iconic movie because Amy had never seen it before. (Turns out, her overprotective mother was worried it would encourage Amy to join a gang.) But the show’s love affair with Grease continued in 2016, when the cast appeared live for A Night at Sardi’s, a musical revue and awards dinner that raises money for the Alzheimer’s Association. The seven main cast members sang a medley of "You’re the One that I Want" and "We Go Together" for a live audience. Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar embodied John Travolta while Kaley Cuoco, Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch performed their best Olivia, all in the name of charity. ONJ would have been proud.

Twist of Fate – Stranger Things Season 2/Episode 9 (2017)
Stranger Things has made its bread and butter by feeding on our need for nostalgia. Every season features something memorable from our generation’s childhood. Of course, they have a bad habit of using songs that weren’t released yet (looking at you, Cutting Crew, Bangles and multi-season offender Moby). But when they use music we grew up listening to while hanging out at the mall, riding bikes with our friends or playing games, it takes us back. The second-season finale brought us to the Hawkins Middle School’s Snow Ball, where we get to enjoy ONJ’s "Twist of Fate" while watching dressed-to-the-nines-but-nervous Dusty enter this unfamiliar territory and seeing poor Steve gaze longingly at his ex-girlfriend Nancy. (The second scene has more impact if you rooted for “Stancy” all through Season 4.) It’s too bad they went with "Time after Time" instead of ONJ and Cliff Richard’s ballad "Suddenly." That would have been perfect for the slow-dancing scene with the kids. But some ONJ is better than none, right?

Sestra Paige

Xanadu -- WKRP in Cincinnati Season 3/Episode 13 (1981)
One thing you pick up on very quickly in reviewing the array of pop-culture possibilities is Olivia's sense of fun. She was never adverse to sending up her image, and that will be a recurring theme in my picks. But it's never more glaringly apparent than on the WKRP episode "Dr. Fever and Mr. Tide (Part 1)." DJ Johnny Fever, always vocal on the show about his hatred for disco, was booked to host a Cincinnati dance program "Gotta Dance." When Johnny realized he wasn't going to get to play rock and roll, he adopted an alternate personality -- Rip Tide -- to do his dirty work for him. The Ripper starts off his first gig by introducing "Miss Oblivious Neutron Bomb" as "Xanadu" starts to play. In a red-sequined disco outfit, Rip lets loose with a wild sequence of twirls and dance moves that we just know were lying in dormant in Johnny Fever for far too long.

 

Please Mr. Please -- Primary Colors (1998)
In Mike Nichols' thinly veiled comedy about a politician who seems destined for the presidency if he can just get out of his own way -- ya, Bill Clinton without the Clinton name -- candidate Jack Stanton (John Travolta) calls upon the services of naive campaign manager Henry Burton (Adrian Lester) and irascible fixer Libby Holden (Oscar-nominated Kathy Bates) to uncover Stanton scandals before they happen. Even though she's just out of a mental hospital, Libby is great at multitasking. While driving her truck, she can talk business while singing along with "Please Mr. Please" on the radio. The movie's toughest-talking character's even gets Henry -- the least likely character to be warbling an ONJ song on the canvas -- to sing along for a bit.

Have You Never Been Mellow -- Veronica Mars Season 3/Episode 9 (2006)
When an Olivia song pops up in the middle of something you're watching, it's a background buoy. Her voice is mellifluous and soothing without being grating or cloying. So in essence, it's like the musical version of an old friend. That can be used to great effect in heightening a scene's tone, stakes are heightened by her very presence. Sestra Leah mentioned that with Jaws, and it's also accomplished to great effect in "Spit & Eggs." Dean Cyrus O'Dell (Ed Begley Jr.) has just made a controversial decision that doesn't protect Veronica Mars and the other girls on campus. As he drives away, the soundtrack cuts back and forth from the frat boys' head-banging music to O'Dell playing "Have You Never Been Mellow" in his car. He's egged by the denizens of Lilith House as Olivia sings about having "your head up in the clouds." It was true of the dean, and something he paid for dearly at the end of the episode.

Physical -- Glee Season 1/Episode 17 (2010)
To this day, "Physical" is still widely used in pop culture. But I can't think of a better instance of the ubiquitous '80s hit getting airplay than in "Bad Reputation." Members of the Glee Club stumble across a video of McKinley High School cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) recreating the legendary "Physical" music video WITH Olivia. The show went all-out on production values, with the whole brightly colored workout room motif recalling the era pitch perfectly. Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer), Mercedes Jones (Amber Riley) and company are really tickled by it, and it's impossible not to agree with them. Olivia also guested on the season finale, "Journey to Regionals," showcasing her willingness to send up her image, but if you ask me, they went a little too far. I find it easier to believe in Xanadu muses than the idea that Olivia was disturbed by the fact that more groups didn't cover her material.

Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John -- Juliana Hatfield (2018)
I never made the connection between Olivia and the Boston-based musician who broke out as a solo artist in the '90s until this tribute album came out. Once it did, it seemed almost too obvious. As Juliana grew up in the same time frame as we did, it wasn't a big surprise to find out she was mightily influenced by ONJ. Sure, the Blake Babies and Lemonheads veteran's sound is a little grittier, but at the core, the voices and the sentiments align perfectly. In culling together this album (which offered a portion of the sales to the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre), Juliana perfectly straddled the line between reminding the listener of the originals and making them her own. She included six of the songs on our list, also delivering a sizzling cover of "Make a Move on Me" while spotlighting a couple of lesser-known songs in ONJ's catalog -- "Don't Stop Believin'" (no, not THAT ONE) and "Dancin' Round and Round." But I don't want to play favorites. Every track is a gem and she avoids all the possible pitfalls to deliver the ultimate tribute.