Meet the Parents

Meet the Parents is a 1992 American independent comedy film written by Greg Glienna and Mary Ruth Clarke. Glienna also directed the film; wrote the original songs "Keep Smiling" (performed by Walter Tabayoyong) and "When Philip's There" (performed by Clarke); and starred as protagonist Greg: a young man meeting his fiancée's parents for the first time who sets off a series of accidents and causes the family to fall apart. Filmed on an approximately $100,000 budget and shot in and around Chicago in 1991, Meet the Parents was not widely distributed and did not earn a large box office profit upon its limited release. It did, however, garner some critical acclaim and film industry attention towards remaking the film on a bigger budget. Several years after its release, Universal Pictures purchased the rights to the independent film and hired screenwriter Jim Herzfeld to expand the script. A new version of Meet the Parents was filmed and released in October 2000. The 2000 version in turn inspired two movie sequels and two television series. Plot A man and his fiancée driving out to meet her parents stop to get gas at a gas station. The man mentions his plans to the owner, who advises him against it, then begins the tale of Greg: an advertising agent who traveled with his fiancée Pam Burns to meet her parents, Irv and Kay, for a weekend that ended disastrously.