Pleasantly plump teenager Tracy Turnblad teaches 1962 Baltimore a thing or two about integration after landing a spot on a local TV dance show.

Motormouth Maybelle: [to Seaweed and Penny] Oh, so this is love?
[pauses, then smiles]
Motormouth Maybelle: Well, love is a gift, a lot of people don't remember that. So, you two better brace yourselves for a whole lotta ugly comin' at you from a neverending parade of stupid.
Penny Pingleton: [deadpans] So, you've met my mom?
Link Larkin: I was just at home, practicing my new twist on The Twist, when I overheard it on the news. I can't believe Tracy savagely bludgeoned an Eagle Scout. That's just not like her.
Edna Turnblad: But it's not true! I was there! He didn't even bleed.
Link Larkin: I shoulda been there, beside her. I can't sleep. I can't eat...
Edna Turnblad: You can't eat? Well, come on in and worry with us. I'll make you some pork.
Corny Collins: [singing] Who cares about sleep when you can snooze in school? You'll never get to college but you'll sure look cool!
Teacher: Oh, and Mr. Larkin, perhaps you'd like to share with the rest of the class, Patrick Henry's immortal last words?
Link Larkin: Kiss my ass?
Penny Pingleton: [looks into the camera] I am now a checkerboard chick!
[grabs Seaweed and kisses him passionately]
Motormouth Maybelle: [watching Edna walk in] If we get any more white people in here, this is gonna be a suburb.
Penny Pingleton: Without that show I have nothing!
Prudy Pingleton: Having nothing builds character!
Penny Pingleton: Oh, no!
Tracy Turnblad: What?
Penny Pingleton: Your hair deflated!
Tracy Turnblad: Let it. It was just a symbol of my conformity to the man.
Penny Pingleton: You are so tough.
Tracy Turnblad: Negro Day's the best! I wish every day were Negro Day!
Seaweed: At our house... it is.
Edna Turnblad: [singing] You can't stop my happiness, 'cuz I like the way I am. And you just can't stop my knife and fork when I see a Christmas ham! And if you don't like the way I look, then I just don't give a damn!
Corny Collins: Roll Call!
Council Members: I'm Amber! Brad! Tammy! Fender! Brenda! Sketch! Shelley! IQ! Lou Ann! Joey! Mikey! Vicki! Becky! Bix! Jesse! Darla! Paulie! Noreen! Doreen! And I'm... Link!
Tracy Turnblad, Penny Pingleton: [scream from home in front of their TV]
Seaweed: Livin' in the ghetto, black is everywhere you go. Who'd have thought I'd love a girl whose skin was white as winter snow?
Penny Pingleton: In my ivory tower, life was just a Hostess snack, but now I've tasted chocolate, and I'm never goin' back!
Velma Von Tussle: [after "New Girl in Town"] How dare you pick the same song!
Motormouth Maybelle: They wrote it.
Wilbur Turnblad: [to Tracy] This is America, babe, you gotta think big to be big.
Edna Turnblad: Big ain't the problem in this family, Wilbur.
Motormouth Maybelle: Well, looks like y'all took a step outta bounds.
[to Seaweed]
Motormouth Maybelle: Who've we got here?
Seaweed: Mom, I want you to meet my new friends. This here is Link, Tracy Turnblad...
Tracy Turnblad: [interrupts] This is just so afro-tastic!
Seaweed: And this young lady right here, is Penny Pingleton.
Penny Pingleton: I'm very pleased and scared to be here.
Motormouth Maybelle: Now, honey, we got more reason to be scared on your street.
Penny Pingleton: Seaweed? Shhh, don't let her hear you!
Seaweed: What happened to you?
Penny Pingleton: [sighs] She's punishing me for harboring a fugitive without her permission. What are you doing?
Seaweed: I'm here to rescue the fair maiden, baby.
[kisses Penny]
Penny Pingleton: Oh, Seaweed, you do care! I was afraid the colors of our skin would keep us apart.
Seaweed: No... but these knots might.
[still trying to untie her]
Seaweed: Was your mom in the Navy?
Penny Pingleton: [after Tracy is rejected by Velma and the Council Members] I think they secretly liked you.
Velma Von Tussle: They're just kids, that's why we have to steer them in the white direction.
Corny Collins: [pause] RIGHT direction?
Velma Von Tussle: Isn't that what I said?
Link Larkin: [bumping into Tracy] Sorry little darlin. Hope I didn't dent your 'do.
Tracy Turnblad: I think I've kind of been in a bubble... thinking that fairness was gonna just happen. It's not. People like me are gonna have to get up off their fathers' laps and go out and fight for it.
Seaweed: My mom's havin' a platter party tonight. Y'all wanna come check it out?
Tracy Turnblad: Now?
Penny Pingleton: Would you mind if I, too, checked it out? I've never been to North Avenue before.
Link Larkin: Uh... well, would it be safe, you know... for us?
Seaweed: Calm down, cracker boy, it's cool.
Penny Pingleton: Wow! Being invited places by colored people!
Tracy Turnblad: It feels so hip!
Seaweed: I'm glad y'all feel that way, 'cause, uh, not many people do.
Corny Collins: I'd like to welcome our new council member, Miss Tracy Turnblad! Tracy, cozy up to ol' Corny and tell us a little bit about yourself
Tracy Turnblad: Well, I watch the Corny Collins show everyday and I do nothing else!
Corny Collins: Oh!
Tracy Turnblad: I also hope to be the first female president... or a rockette!
Corny Collins: As your first act as president, what would you do?
Tracy Turnblad: Hmm...
[ponders]
Tracy Turnblad: ... I'd make everyday Negro Day!
Corny Collins: I read you like tomorrow's headlines!
Penny Pingleton: [about Amber] Plastic little spastic.
Tracy Turnblad: People who are different, their time is coming!
Corny Collins: [at the conclusion of "It's Hairspray"] Hey, baby! You look like you could use a stiff one!
Edna Turnblad: Penny, get home before your mother shoots you.
Edna Turnblad: Imagine! My little girl... regular, at last.
Link Larkin: Uh... we're on live.
Amber von Tussel: You have to vote for a person! Not one of the Himalayas.
Edna Turnblad: Well, I had a dream that I would own a coin-operated laundromat but I came down from that cloud real quickly!
Mr. Spritzer: [about Tracy] I want that chubby Communist girl off my show!
Tracy Turnblad: I'm a bad, bad girl who needs to be punished.
Velma Von Tussle: [singing] Those poor runner-ups/Might still hold some grudges/They padded their 'cups'/But I screwed the judges.
[last lines]
Ensemble: [singing] Ever since we first saw the sun, a man and woman liked to shake it when the day is done. And so we're gonna shake and shimmy it and have some fun today. Cause you can't stop the motion of the ocean or the rain from above. They can try to stop the paradise that we're dreamin' of, but you'll never stop the rhythm of two hearts in love to stay. Cause you can't stop the beat. You can't stop the beat. You can't stop the beat. You can't stop the beat. You can't stop the beat.
Velma Von Tussle: 'Detroit sound?' What's that? The cries of people being mugged?
Corny Collins: Tell me, Velma, how exactly do you fire Corny Collins from the Corny Collins show?
[walks away]
Velma Von Tussle: [starts to speak and then pauses, frustrated] They do it all the time on "Lassie"!
Amber von Tussel: [to her classmates] Oh, and it's totally not true about her and the entire football team. I mean, please: anybody can get grass stains all over their back.
Link Larkin: Amber, stop it. I'm sick of you doing that! Just because she's a good dancer...
Amber von Tussel: [scoffs] Uh, I'm sorry... you think that she can dance? Well, maybe you'd rather have her as your partner. You could get sponsored by Goodyear!
Corny Collins: And now it's time to say goodbye to our very own fun-lovin', free-wheelin' little Brenda.
Corny Collins: [looks to Brenda] Come on up here, Brenda. Brenda will be taking a leave of absence from the show. How long are you gonna be gone, Brenda?
Brenda: [smiles nervously] Just nine months.
Tracy Turnblad: Penny, the cops are looking for me everywhere... you could go to jail for helping me!
Penny Pingleton: Tracy, I'm already in jail. Come on!
Edna Turnblad: Tracy, I have told you about that hair. All ratted up like a teenage Jezebel!
Penny Pingleton: Tracy's "flamboyant flip" is all the rage, Miss Edna. Jackie Kennedy, our First Lady, even rats her hair.
Edna Turnblad: But Tracy ain't no First Lady, are your Tracy? No siree. She's a hair hopper, that's what she is!
Velma Von Tussle: [disgusted] Oh!
[forces a smile]
Velma Von Tussle: Mrs. Turnblad! I'd know whose mother you were ANYWHERE.
[notices Edna's outfit]
Velma Von Tussle: Oh, let me guess - new dress?
Edna Turnblad: [nods, shyly but proudly]
Velma Von Tussle: Well... you'll stop traffic!
[laughs]
Edna Turnblad: [looks away, crushed]
Velma Von Tussle: It was nice meeting you... Tracy.
[struts away with Amber, as Edna starts crying]
Tracy Turnblad: Mama, don't you DARE listen to a word she says!
[Edna appears not to hear her]
Tracy Turnblad: Come on! She's just worried that I'm going to win the Miss Teenage Hairspray contest!
Edna Turnblad: [stops crying immediately and looks at Tracy, impressed] ... Really?
Prudy Pingleton: [to Penny] Wait till your father gets out of prison, you'll see more than a jump rope!
Amber von Tussel: [on the phone with Edna, disguising her voice] My name is Mike.
Edna Turnblad: [off-camera] Mike?
Amber von Tussel: Yes, Mike.
Edna Turnblad: Mike who?
Amber von Tussel: [slips back into her normal voice] It's MIKE!
[catches herself, coughs]
Amber von Tussel: Anyway... I'm calling because I have some information about your daughter's whereabouts.
Edna Turnblad: What?
Amber von Tussel: Right now, as we speak, your daughter has entered a hotbed of moral... turpentine.
Link Larkin: [presents Amber with a ring] It's time.
Amber von Tussel: Oh!
[Amber and Link kiss]
Velma Von Tussle: Amber! Save your personal life for the camera, sweetie! Oop, shiny!
[sends Amber off to makeup for more powder]
Edna Turnblad: No one is auditioning for anything in this household!
Tracy Turnblad: But why not? Why not?
Edna Turnblad: Dancing is not your future. One day, you're going to own Edna's Occidental Laundry.
Tracy Turnblad: I don't want to be a laundress. I want to be famous.
Edna Turnblad: If you want to be famous, learn how to take blood out of car upholstery. That's a skill you can take right to the bank.
Amber Von Tussle, Franklin von Tussle: Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!
Prudence: Penny Pingleton, you know you are punished. From now on you're wearing a giant P on your blouse EVERY DAY to school so that the whole world knows that Penny Pingleton is permanently, positively, punished.
Amber von Tussel: I lost, Mom. Let's just deal with it!
Velma Von Tussle: [as she pulls the tallies out of her dress] You did not lose! You can not have lost because I switched the damn tallies!
Edna Turnblad: [standing behind a live television camera] Smile, Miss Crabcakes! You're on Candid Camera!
Wilbur Turnblad: That was a good shot! Don't you think?
Tracy Turnblad: Momma, welcome to the sixties.
Edna Turnblad: If you protest you'll be in files! You'll be on lists! J. Edgar Hoover will still be wire-tapping your cold dead body in the grave.
Corny Collins: Velma, isn't this where it's all heading anyway? Now you can fight it, or you can rock out to it!
Motormouth Maybelle: [singing] Oh, oh, oh... you can't stop today as it comes speeding down the track! Child, yesterday is history, and it's never coming back! 'Cause tomorrow is a brand new day, and it don't know white from black! 'Cause the world keeps spinnin' 'round and 'round, and my heart's keepin' time to the speed of sound... I was lost 'till I heard the drums and I found my way, 'cause you can't stop the beat!
Edna Turnblad: [about Amber] I watch that tramp and I'm embarrassed to be white.
Link Larkin: That's my shot, Trace.
Tracy Turnblad: But, it's whats right.
Link Larkin: I'm sorry, Trace. I just think this adventure is a little too big for me.
Velma Von Tussle: How can you taint a cancerous can of chemicals?
Iggy: Would you swim in an integrated swimming pool?
Tracy Turnblad: I sure would, Iggy. I'm a modern kind of girl, I'm all for integration.
Velma Von Tussle: Incredible! I could do a fan dance with a lettuce leaf and you would remain completely obtuse!
Wilbur Turnblad: Obtuse?
Velma Von Tussle: Yes, obtuse!
Wilbur Turnblad: I flunked geometry...
Velma Von Tussle: ...yes, and biology too, no doubt!
Edna Turnblad: Penny, you better go home now, your mother just called here all frantic.
[singing]
Tammy: Are you scared we're on live?
Tracy Turnblad: No, I'm sure I can cope.
Amber Von Tussle: Well, this show isn't broadacst in...
Tammy, Amber Von Tussle, Shelley, Noreen, Doreen, Vicki, Darla, Becky: [with the other council girls] Cinemascope!
Velma Von Tussle: I never drank one chocolate malt. No desserts for Miss Baltimore Crabs.
Police Chief: [while on the lookout for Tracy] I doubt she'll risk jail to win some beauty pageant.
Velma Von Tussle: [to herself] I risked communicable diseases. She'll certainly risk jail.
Edna Turnblad: Would you keep that racket down? I'm trying to iron, here!
Tracy Turnblad: Oh, Link, I wish I had dark skin.
Link Larkin: Tracy, our souls are black, though our skin is white.
Velma Von Tussle: [singing to Wilbur] You're gonna need more than some seltzer to put out this fire.
[from trailer]
Link Larkin: [to Tracy] I think knowing you is the start of a pretty big adventure.
Prudy Pingleton: [tying Penny to her bed with a jump rope, as Penny stoically says nothing]
Prudy Pingleton: Penny Lou Pingleton, you are absolutely, positively, permanently punished. You will live on a diet of saltines and Tang, and you will never leave this room again.
Prudy Pingleton: [tosses holy water on Penny] Devil child, devil child!
Penny Pingleton: [glowers at her mother]
Motormouth Maybelle: Oh Papa Tooney. We've got a Looney.
Prudence Pingleton: Don't you try to cast one of your voodoo spells on me, native woman.
[from trailer]
Velma Von Tussle: [to Edna, about Tracy] Tracy certainly has redefined our standards
[chuckles]
Amber von Tussel: That's for sure.
Wilbur Turnblad: [to Edna, as she resists the urge to jump onto the stage and dance] Do it now! Or forever wish you had!
Amber Von Tussle: That girl's got roaches in her hair!
Edna Turnblad: Roaches? Our little Tracy's a clean teen!
Wilbur: There's no bugs on our baby!
Amber Von Tussle: I'm not kidding, I just saw one!
Penny Pingleton: I don't know why we have this room, but there's food, water, a bed, gas mask, Russian language books...
Tracy Turnblad: ...and it's really well insulated.
Wilbur Turnblad: [to a sobbing Edna, who thinks he's been cheating on her] Honey, took me five years to figure out you were flirting!
[softly]
Wilbur Turnblad: How could I ever?
Wilbur Turnblad: This heart only beats for size 60.
Prudy Pingleton: [about Tracy, who was just on the news] You see? You see! If I let you leave the house right now, you'd be in prison, fighting whores for cigarettes. That Tracy Turnblad always was a bad influence! Well, you are never, ever gonna see that beehived harlot again.
Penny Pingleton: [sees Tracy in the window, gets up to leave] Okay, mother. Excuse me.
Prudy Pingleton: Penny!
[offers her a rosary]
Prudy Pingleton: Pray for her. She's gonna need it.
Tracy Turnblad: Oh, Mother. You're so fifties.
Velma Von Tussle: Hey you. Can I ask you a personal question?
Edna Turnblad: No, you may not...
Velma Von Tussle: Is your daughter mulatto?
Prudy Pingleton: Get the jump rope, Penny.
Penny Pingleton: [runs out of the room] Mom, not the jump rope!
Prudy Pingleton: [to Tracy] Don't you touch my canned tuna!
Amber Von Tussle: [to Penny] Are you now or have you ever gone steady?
Motormouth Maybelle: No matter what you've heard, we are gonna teach the white children how to do The Bird!
Amber Von Tussle: Aren't you a little fat for the show?
Tracy Turnblad: I'm sure many of the other home viewers out there are pleasantly plump or chunky.
Amber Von Tussle: Come on. The show's not filmed in Cinemascope.
[from trailer]
Penny Pingleton: [to Tracy, at the dance] Get out there and show them!
Edna Turnblad: First the hair, now this?
Wilbur Turnblad: But, all the kids are battin' up their hair now, hon.
Edna Turnblad: [to Wilbur] You're no help.
Tracy Turnblad: It's ratting, daddy.
[to Edna]
Tracy Turnblad: And our first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy does it!
Edna Turnblad: I don't believe that.
Tracy Turnblad: What do you mean you don't believe that? How else would it look that way?
Edna Turnblad: I believe that it is naturally stiff.
Mr. Pinky: There's my shining star! Fantastic to meet you! I'm Mr. Pinky
Tracy Turnblad: It's so nice to meet you!
Mr. Pinky: Tracy, is this your older sister?
Edna Turnblad: Oh!
[chuckles]
Mr. Pinky: Perhaps you both would like some complimentary couture?
[hands them a tray of doughnuts]
Edna Turnblad: Couture?
Mr. Pinky: [presents Edna with Tracy's spokesgirl contract] Now, if you could just sign here...
Edna Turnblad: Flattery will not distract Miss Turnblad's agent from reading the fine print!
Mr. Pinky: [flabbergasted] Her agent?
Edna Turnblad: [hands Tracy the food tray] Tracy, eat your doughnuts.
[to Mr. Pinky]
Edna Turnblad: Let's talk...
[from trailer]
Motormouth Maybelle: [to Edna] Are you sure you wouldn't like to have a little something to eat?
Edna Turnblad: [looks at pot roast] Is that braised?
Mr. Pinky: Fatty, fatty, two-by-four. Can't get through the dressing room door?
Penny Pingleton: I wish I was at a hootenanny in Harlem.
Penny Pingleton: Mom, please don't send my best friend to the big house!
Prudy Pingleton: [grabs Penny] Penny, hush!
Tracy Turnblad: You haven't heard the last of me, Mrs. Pingleton! Things need to change, and I won't stop trying to change them. I don't care how long it takes.
Prudy Pingleton: Good! You'll be waiting twenty to life.
[from trailer]
Motormouth Maybelle: [after demonstrating a dance] That's the way you do it!
Velma Von Tussle: Relax. Take it easy. Tension is the worst thing for a complexion.
Tracy Turnblad: Now all of Baltimore will know... I'm big, blonde and beautiful!
Corny Collins: It looks like we have an opening here for another girl who is just as fun-lovin' but maybe not as free-wheelin'!
[first lines]
Tracy Turnblad: [singing] Oh, oh, oh, woke up today, feeling the way I always do. Oh, oh, oh, hungry for something that I can't eat. Then I hear that beat. That rhythm of town starts calling me down. It's like a message from high above. Oh, oh, oh, pulling me out to the smiles and the streets that I love. Good morning, Baltimore!
Beatnik Chick: Are you a checkerboard chick, you know, black and white, salt and pepper
Penny Pingleton: Yes, I'm a checkerboard chick, I guess
Geometry Student: I can't see through her hair.
Tracy Turnblad: I can't help it if he's short.
Geometry Teacher: You're ratted hair is preventing yet another student's geometry education.
Tracy Turnblad: It's feathered, not ratted.
Geometry Teacher: Whatever you call it, it's a hair-don't. You've been warned repeatedly. I want you to take a little walk down to the principle's office. Let's see what he has to say
Tracy Turnblad: I'm an integrationist. We shall overcome someday.
Beatnik Chick: Not with that hair, you won't.
Prudence Pingleton: [Seaweed is hiding in Penny's bedroom] Oh my God! There's colored people in my house! I'm going to make a citizen's arrest!
Amber Von Tussle: Tracy Turnblad is a human roach nest.
Tammy: Please wait outside. The council will now meet in secret, debate your personality flaws, and come to a final decision.
Edna Turnblad: Could you turn that racket down, I'm trying to iron in here.
Amber von Tussel: [to Shelley] Do that again, and there'll be stumps where your feet are, you got that? You little who...
Link Larkin: [interrupting] Hey, Amber
Amber von Tussel: [to Link]
Amber Van Tussle: Do you relate to the music of Leslie Gore?
Nadine: Look, she ain't no James Brown... but I can dance to Lawrence Welk if I have to.
[last lines]
Tracy Turnblad: Let's dance!
Velma Van Tussle: At least try to act white on television.
Iggy: [to Tracey] Would you ever swim in an integrated swimming pool?
Amber Von Tussle: [Amber is gossiping with two friends in school] Anyway, she was right there in the car, in plain sight of just everybody at the hop. She was NUDE.
Amber's school friend #1: No!
Amber's school friend #2: That fat thing?
Amber Von Tussle: Tracy Turnblad is a WHORE.
Tracy Turnblad: How do you get your hair so straight and so flat?
Beatnik Chick: With an iron, man. I play my bongos, listen to Odetta, and then I iron my hair, dig?
Velma Van Tussle: That fat girl's no competition.
Franklin von Tussle: White trash. Pure and simple.
Tracy Turnblad: I would imagine that many of the home viewers are also pleasantly plump or chunky.
Amber Von Tussle: Oh, come on. This show's not filmed in CinemaScope.
Edna Turnblad: [catching Tracy at Motormouth Maybelle's Record Shop] No call? You just disappear?
[looks Link up and down]
Edna Turnblad: And all mashed up against a crooner!
Penny Pingleton: I'm just a little nervous.
Tammy: This is show business young lady. If you're nervous now, Hah. Wait 'til you're on the air.
Gym Teacher: Special Ed! In the red!
Wilbur: Tracy, we all have responsibilities in life. You may think owning the Hardy-Har joke shop is all drudgery; unwrapping dribble glasses, checking doggy doo, but I wuv it.
Tracy Turnblad: POLICE BRUTALITYYY! POLICE BRUTALITYYYYYY!
Beatnik Chick: When I'm high, I AM Odetta. Let's get naked and smoke.
Geometry Teacher: Tracy Turnblad, once again your ratted hair is preventing another student's geometry education.
Tracy Turnblad: It's feathered, not ratted.
Geometry Teacher: Whatever you call it, it's a hair-don't.
Tracy Turnblad: I'm all for integration.
[from trailer]
Mr. Pinky: [guessing Edna's sizes] 54-Double D?
Edna Turnblad: Triple E
[chuckles]
Mr. Pinky: [shouts] I hit the Mother Lode!
Tracy Turnblad: [to Penny] Penny, they put me i Special Ed just because of my hair.
Motormouth Maybelle: Napaway. For stubborn hair. Every kink, will be gone in a blink.
Edna Turnblad: It's the times. They are a-changin'. Something's blowing in the wind. Fetch me my diet pills, would you, Hon?
Velma Von Tussle: And you HAD to pick a colored song, didn't you? You got something against Connie Francis? Shelley Fabares? I LOVE Shelley Fabares!
Amber Von Tussle: Mother, Shake a Tail Feather has a wild song. It's got a good beat and you can dance to it.
[first lines]
Tracy Turnblad: Come on! Come on!
Penny Pingleton: Okay, all right.
Tracy Turnblad: Will you hurry up?
Link Larkin, Tracy Turnblad, Penny Pingleton, Seaweed: [ending the song "Without Love"] Darlin' you had best believe me, never leave me without love!
Edna Turnblad: [called from off camera] Link, your pork is ready!
Motormouth Maybelle: Tidley papa, I am a whopper... Motormouth Maybelle's my name and sweetheart, dancin' is my game.
[Applause]
Motormouth Maybelle: Motormouth, Motormouth, Motormouth!
L'il Inez: Segregation never, integration now.
Edna Turnblad: Our little Tracy's too busy ratting her hair and doing the "Ubangi Stomp."