[Allegra]

Sure, it was a fantasy. TV always creates a caricature. Lenny and Squiggy weren't typical of anything either. Garry Marshall was trying to cash in on the Sha-Na-Na, Grease thing. Grease the theatrical musical, not the movie which came later.

I always thought “American Graffiti” was one of the influences.

[x]

Probably a bigger one. I forgot all about it. Ron Howard was in both in both the movie and the TV show and his character was similar, so that explains a lot about where Garry Marshall's mind probably was. Funny thing, though, American Grafitti was set in 1962, not in the Fifties.

Grease was more memorable to me because my sister was always playing the record, singing the songs, and going to the movie. When I looked up Grease, I found that Sha-Na-Na was an influence on that, and I took it from there. There was a leather jacket guy in American Grafitti, but the comic aspects of Fonzi may owe more to Bowser or Grease.

You're right, though. However big Grease the movie would be later, more people saw American Grafitti than Grease the musical, and Marshall must have seen it too.