Meet the Parents

Factual error: Ben Stiller buys Champagne in a drug store, yet in NY the only legal place to buy wine/champagne is a liquor store.

Factual error: The opening scene outside the pre-school is supposed to take place in Chicago, but actually is somewhere in New York State you can tell by the postcard-like registration sticker in the lower driver side windshield of the cars.

Factual error: Greg's flight back to Chicago was leaving LaGuardia at 2:35am, only problem is that LaGuardia doesn't fly past midnight, they shut down. They should've used JFK which is 24/7 and only 15mins away from LGA, or Macauthur which is even closer to Oyster Bay.

Revealing mistake: At the airport when Jack says 'tow it', there is an extra waiting for his mark to walk outside seen in the reflection of the doors.

More mistakes in Meet the Parents

Jack Byrnes: What are you driving there? Ford?
Greg Focker: Yeah it's a Taurus. Yeah, we were going to get a mid-size, but I figure, hey, we pull down decent bucks. Might as well go all out, and pop for the full-size.
Jack Byrnes: Sure. Interesting color. You pick it?
Greg Focker: Oh, no, the guy at the counter. Why?
Jack Byrnes: Well, they say geniuses pick green. But you didn't pick it.

More quotes from Meet the Parents

Trivia: This film is actually a remake. The original "Meet the Parents" was an obscure independent film released in 1992, and was noticeably a much darker comedy. The rights to the film were eventually purchased by Universal. While this film became a massive hit, the original film has remained very obscure and is very hard to track down.

TedStixon

More trivia for Meet the Parents

Question: Pam, Greg, and Kevin appear to be in their late twenties or early thirties, but Pam says that the movie "Top Gun" was very popular when she was dating Kevin. "Top Gun" was released in 1986; more than ten years before this movie is taking place. Because Pam was engaged to Kevin at one point (she also describes their relationship as "more physical than anything else"), they must have been legal adults when they were together. Why would the movie "Top Gun" have been "very popular" while they were dating?

Answer: Who says they had to have been legal adults to date when Top Gun was popular? They could very well have been teenagers and got engaged shortly afterwards. If Teri Polo and Owen Wilson are playing characters that were born the same years as the actors themselves they would have been 17 and 18 respectively when Top Gun was released. If they are playing characters a few years older than they actually are, which is entirely plausible, what Pam says makes perfect sense.

BaconIsMyBFF

I would like to add that a movie doesn't stop being "very popular" soon after the release. In 2000, when I was in middle/junior high school, we actively talked about movies that had been released three or more years before (Forrest Gump, Scream, Cruel Intentions, etc.). A movie from 1986 could easily be popular among a dating/engaged couple and their friends in, say, 1990.

More questions & answers from Meet the Parents

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.