Meet the Fockers (2004) - 9 questions

Question: How come Gaylord 'admits' to being Jorge's father after being injected with the truth serum? We find out later that Jorge's actual father was the baseball player, so why would Gaylord lie about being the father - especially after being injected with truth serum?.

Answer: Truth serum doesn't automatically make you speak the absolute truth - all it can do is make you say what you believe to be the truth. If Gaylord believed himself to be Jorge's father, then he would say that under the truth serum, even if it ultimately turned out not to be the case.

Question: Does Sodium Pentothal really erase memories of events that happened during and after you take it?

Answer: It doesn't exactly erase your memories, rather it causes a form of apnea and drowsiness, causing you to be semi-concious or not fully awake, similar to blacking out. This causes you to not remember events that took place during your dosage and during the course of time it is in your bloodstream. Since it puts you in a physical and mental state where the easiest things to do are all you can manage the mental strength to do, it is used as a truth serum, since lying is much more complicated than telling the truth. Because of these properties the drug possesses, higher doses can also be used for Euthanasia, Medical Induced Comas, and even Lethal Injections.

Question: Is there such thing as "Baby Sign Language" in real life or was it made just for the film?

Answer: There is definitely such a thing. There is a theory that teaching babies and toddlers sign language, allows them to communicate their needs, which they cannot do verbally. This allows them to be less frustrated and, hopefully, less cranky.

Question: What is all this about "Muscrat" or something like that? Dina keeps saying "Muscrat" when Jack is a bit rude to Greg, but I don't understand the whole point of that.

Answer: It's a "safety signal", a word they have agreed she should say to remind Jack to keep his cool. Like most such words, they have chosen one that will not come up in a normal conversation, as it would then not have the impact needed to remind Jack to calm down. One can only guess as to where they picked up this technique, but it does not seem unlikely that Jack has had to have some anger management courses.

Question: I'm confused. Is Pam really having a baby or not 'cause when the credits were rolling gaylord said Pam wasn't really having a baby. Then when he noticed the camera he said he was joking. So is Pam having a baby or not?

Answer: Pam is pregnant. This scene echoes one in Meet the Parents where Ben Stiller talks into a picture frame, revealing that he did smoke hash, did flush the toilet and all the other stuff he said he didn't do. Except this time, he knows the camera is there and plays up to it.

Question: When Greg, Pam and their parents are in the garden drinking, one of them gets onto the fact that Greg is an only child. Jack says to Greg 'You said you had a sister. You milked your sister's cat'. Then Greg looks at him strangely and looks away. I never get that. Why did he lie about having a sister?

Answer: In Meet the Parents, the film to which this is the sequel, Greg says something about how you can milk anything, even cats "I once milked my sister's cat". Obviously, Greg was clutching at straws and concocted this story about his fictious sister's cat to try get out of it. Of course, Jack being a former CIA man picked up on this.

Question: I probably missed this, but why does Dina keep saying, "muskrat" to Jack?

Answer: Muskrat is a "code word" they use to remind Jack to keep his temper under control.

Question: I'm not sure if this is a mistake or not, but shouldn't Greg be wearing a yamaka during his wedding? He and his family are Jewish so why would he not be wearing one?

Answer: Wearing a yamaka is a custom, not a religious law. There are orthodox jews who don't wear them, as well, since it's a cultural thing.

Question: Just two things I was curious about whilst watching. Does anyone know how they trained the boy who plays Little Jack to do the hand signals and cry on cue etc.? I imagine it would be quite difficult to teach a toddler all of that. Also, how did they get a boy who looks so much like Ben Stiller for the part of Jorge? Is he related in any way or is it just luck that they found a boy like that?

Answer: Little Jack is played by twins so both twins did not necessarily have to learn all of the "tricks". Ray Santiago is not related to Ben Stiller and there are quite a lot of make-up effects applied to his face especially around the nose, ears and eyebrows.