Trivia / Meet the Parents (1992)

• Absurdly Short Production Time: It took Greg Glienna one month to write the original 80-page script. Production was completed into two weeks, and mamy scenes were shot in one take.
• California Doubling: Initially averted when we first see Greg and Pam driving together because they're from Chicago, and filming took place in and around Chicago. Played straight thereafter because Fay mentions that she desires to move out of Indiana, where she still lives with her parents.
• No Budget: In an interview, Glienna alluded to making the film on a $35,000 budget, wishing he could have had an extra $100,000 to add more convincing cinematography, lighting, etc.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: Since they bought the rights to Glienna's film, Universal Studios has not allowed him to release it on any home media, as they see it as a competition to their version of the story. The filmmaker remains baffled, saying in a 2024 interview, "I don’t know why but they just will not let me show it. I just wish I had a lawyer who knew what he was doing at the time and would have made that clear to me. My lawyer back then didn’t separate the film and the script in the contract, so the wording of it means when they bought the script they bought the film.".
  • Glienna uploaded the entire film to his official YouTube channel, but Universal forcibly took it down. He has since done it again, although it's difficult to access using conventional means of Web searching. Fortunately, we have the link here for those who are morbidly curious.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Several people contacted Greg Glienna and producer James Vincent after Meet the Parents's release, wishing the director and producer could have incorporated experiences like theirs into the film.
  • Bingo the dog wasn't supposed to drown in a lake while chasing after a stick thrown by Greg at first. He was scripted to retrieve the stick without fail several times, only to jump out the Burns family car window later to chase after a popsicle stick thrown by Greg (which likely would have resulted in the dog being killed by oncoming traffic). This would have been the second way in which Fay, the popsicle eater, indirectly gets Greg into trouble, the first being her planting marijuana cigarettes in his luggage.