In 1978, Travolta went on to Grease, an adaptation of the Broadway musical. With vibrant colors, unforgettably campy and catchy tunes (like "Greased Lightning," "Summer Nights," and "You're the One That I Want"), and fabulously choreographed musical numbers, the '50s-nostalgia story about the romantic dilemmas experienced by a group of graduating high school seniors remains fresh, fun, and incredibly imaginative. Travolta struts, swaggers, sings, and dances appropriately, while Olivia Newton-John's portrayal of virgin innocence is the only decent acting she's ever done.

Travolta traded in disco duds for a cowboy hat in Urban Cowboy (1980), a corny love story about a workingman who breaks up with his girlfriend (Debra Winger), then plays out their relationship's turmoil inside a huge honky-tonk called Gilley's. The story essentially parallels Saturday Night Fever in its blend of ordinary life, incomplete relationships, and personal pride channeled into niche stardom at a neighborhood club, and the film is really a time capsule on a lot of levels--notably Travolta's career and late-'70s Western kitsch.