TedStixon

Trivia: Mel Brooks asked George Lucas permission to parody "Star Wars" with this film. Lucas was very supportive of the film, and even gave Brooks stock footage from "Star Wars" to use and had Industrial Light and Magic help with the effects. Lucas reportedly loves the finished film.

TedStixon

Trivia: There are thee versions of the film. The US cut is 93 minutes. The international cut is slightly longer 98 minutes. And the original festival version of the film was the longest, at 108 minutes.

TedStixon

Trivia: This movie is based on an earlier short film entitled "Zombie: The Musical," which was created by co-writer Ryan McHenry. (Sadly, McHenry passed away after a battle with cancer during pre-production on this film).

TedStixon

Trivia: A character briefly mentions Ryan Gosling in the film. This is a bit of an inside joke, as the film's co-writer Ryan McHenry also created a popular meme based on Gosling called "Ryan Gosling won't eat his cereal."

TedStixon

Trivia: The film's scratch-and-sniff "Odorama" gimmick (where audiences could "smell the movie") was inspired by the works of director William Castle, who often used audience-participation gimmicks in the films he distributed. Castle was a personal hero of director John Waters.

TedStixon

Trivia: John Waters' first film to receive an R-rating. All of his prior films were either released unrated, or were rated X.

TedStixon

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

Trivia: Originally, the film was meant to be a vehicle for Jim Carrey. Among his contributions was Greg's surname, "Focker." Eventually, Carrey left the production, and Ben Stiller took the part.

TedStixon

Trivia: The film's controversial ending was the source of great struggle. Writer/director Frank Darabont was approached by several different studios who wanted to make the film, but only on the condition that Darabont changed the ending. Darabont refused over and over until he found a studio that would let him keep it. "The Mist" author Stephen King has commented that he absolutely loved the film's ending, which divulged from his novella, and wishes he had thought of it when he was writing the original story.

TedStixon

Trivia: Technically this wouldn't count as a mistake since it requires going through frame-by-frame, but there's an amusing little flub in the pod-race. When Sebulba's craft crashes, go through frame-by-frame when his one engine hits the rock formation. The rock formation actually begins to explode a frame or two before the engine strikes it. It's hard to tell it's happening when viewing the movie at normal speed, but you can catch it going frame-by-frame. Just an amusing little slip-up in the rendering.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: In a few of the wider crowd shots during the pod-race, you can make out some oddities. In particular, if you look closely, you'll see the same group people copy/pasted over and over in different places and different configurations in the audience to make the crowds seem bigger. (Slow motion or pausing helps, but is not necessary.) This is actually a relatively common special effects trick to make crowds seem bigger.

TedStixon

Trivia: The "shemale" who frightens away Raymond was a friend of John Waters who was transgender and was about to have reassignment surgery. Waters put them in the film because they had developed female characteristics such as breasts and looked like a woman, but still had male genitalia. They subsequently had the surgery one week later and appeared in Waters' next film as a fully female character.

TedStixon

Trivia: The infamous closing scene in which Divine eats dog feces was completely real. The dog was fed steak before filming, and his owner wouldn't let it outside to "go" until they were ready to film. Divine later called a hospital to see if he could get sick from the stunt, pretending to be a concerned parent whose "retarded child ate dog poop" because he was too embarrassed to admit he did it.

TedStixon

Trivia: Director John Waters provides the voice of the narrator. He attempted to get a local Baltimore media personality named "Mr. Ray" to do the voice over, but he refused. Mr. Ray was notorious in the area for producing commercials that came across as clueless and even racist at times, and Waters thought it would be hilarious to have him do the voiceover.

TedStixon

Trivia: John Waters tried to get Mink Stole to let him set her hair on fire for the movie, but she (wisely) declined. Waters has since admitted that it was for the best, as it would have likely ended in disaster. Waters did eventually get the gag of a woman's hair being set on fire accomplished in his film "Cecil B. Demented," albeit using special effects.

TedStixon

Trivia: John Waters attempted for some time to produce a sequel, titled "Flamingos Forever," but he never went ahead due to the deaths of co-stars Edith Massey and Divine.

TedStixon

Trivia: Matthew Lillard plays the titular "Serial Mom's" son. Two years later, he would go on to play one of the serial killers in the famous slasher-satire "Scream."

TedStixon

Trivia: John Waters has admitted to being high on drugs while writing "Pink Flamingos," though he is adamant he was not high while shooting it.

TedStixon

Trivia: Director John Waters has a voice-over cameo as the voice of Ted Bundy in the tape that's found.

TedStixon

Trivia: Both Julie Andrews and Susan Sarandon were considered for the titular character.

TedStixon