Free Republic

<p>Vanessa Hudgens performed on “Grease: Live!” Sunday, hours after announcing that her father, Greg Hudgens, had lost his battle with cancer.</p> <p>She appeared alongside Julianne Hough, Aaron Tveit, Keke Palmer and Carly Rae Jepsen on the Fox special.</p>

Grease will be the word in the halls of Fox this week. The network's three-hour live telecast of the musical was a ratings success. Nielsen has the performance averaging 12.2 million viewers and a handsome 4.3 rating among adults 18-49. That's after early numbers gave the performance a 7.4 overnight rating among households. Fox easily had first-place status on broadcast for the night and saw its score in the key demo rival TV's biggest live musical in recent memory. This being the network's first live musical, its only ratings comparisons will be to NBC's last three efforts. Topping the first...