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When Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro went to the store there are head rests on the back seats, but on the way back from Owen Wilson's house they've gone. See more...

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In the scene where Greg is entering the drug store, listen to the lyrics of the music playing on the speakers - they are very similar to his speech when he says grace in the dinner table scene. Obviously where he got his words from, but not immediately obvious unless you listen for it. See more...

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Meet the Parents (2000) - 28 corrections

Directed by Jay Roach, starring Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Robert De Niro, Teri Polo (add more)

Genres: Comedy, Romance

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

Mistakes
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In the scene where Greg is getting acquainted with Pam's parents, Jack asks him what kind of car he's driving, and Greg tells him it's a Taurus. However, minutes before, as they drove in, you could see the back of the car and it was clearly a Ford Contour, not a Taurus. [Greg may not know much about cars. He could have not been paying much attention to the make and model of the car (evident since he didn't even pick the colour) when it was rented. It's a character mistake, not a movie mistake.]
Edit Corrected by Knever
Robert DeNiro is explaining that the cameras in the teddy bear and the decorative artifact are motion-activated. Shortly after, Ben Stiller waves his hand in front of the bear, which should have activated the camera. When they cut to DeNiro again, the image on the TV screen should've been from the bear camera, but wasn't. DeNiro's position in the next shot suggests he had been still at the time, and wouldn't have set off the other camera. [Although they are motion-sensitive, they're not perfect. They might not have picked up a reading, or they could simply be on a delay/pre-delay.]
Edit Corrected by Knever Time
When Greg is on the plane trying to fit his luggage into the overhead compartment, there is clearly someone sitting in the seat in front of him. At the same time, there is a young guy trying to get by. After Greg asks him where the fire is, he decides to take a seat. But he chooses the row right in front of Greg, which in the previous shot was clearly taken already. [Greg is standing next to the couple that are in the seats. The man trying to get passed sits in the row in front of them however the couple cannot be seen in the shot.]
Edit
When everyone first arrives at Kevin's house, Pam says to Greg, "I was sure I told you, Kevin is Bob's best man, this is his place." But Pam didn't know that it was Kevin's house until they arrived there, so she could not have been sure that she had told him. [It's all in how you interpret her turn of words. It is just as likely that she knew they were heading over to Kevin's, even if she herself did not know exactly where it was (and neglected to tell Greg where they were going). In that case, the statement "I was sure I told you" only reflects Kevin being best man, and "this is his place" was added on to explain where they were.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
Jack shouldn't know that the fake Jinx's tail had to be spray-painted. While he can obviously smell the spray paint, he never saw the fake cat before, so there is no way he could have known that the cat's tail looked different from the real Jinx's. [It is not exactly a difficult conclusion to draw. Jack smelled paint on a strange cat that looked exactly like Jinx, so he naturally concluded that the paint was there to alter its appearance.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
In the scene when Stiller is on the plane at 2 in the morning, when the stewardess is trying to get him to check the bag, he says (in so many words) that she can try to get the bag from his "Kung Fu grip." Right when he says that, look to the left part of the screen. There is a guy in the back row that has to duck his head because he cracks up. [Is it that hard to believe that when hearing a stranger say something quite funny/absurd they start laughing? I know I have done it many a time.]
Edit
Jack accuses Greg of spray-painting the shelter cat's tail to make him look like Mr. Jinx, but there's no way Jack could have known that Greg went to a shelter and found a cat with a white-tipped tail. [I don't quite see how the submitter has linked Jack to somehow knowing about the shelter, as he makes no such mention. Jack found out that the cat was a fake because his neighbour left a message saying that he had Mr. Jinx at his house. When the family gets home and smells the cat it just confirms that Greg brought home some cat and spray painted it.]
Edit Corrected by Lummie
When Kevin is about to show Pam and Greg the wedding altar he made, he pulls a tarp off and states that he just put a fresh coat of lacquer on it that morning. With the wedding coming up, why would he cover it with a tarp and prevent it from drying properly? The tarp couldn't really be for secrecy's sake, as it's doubtful anyone would've gone into that room anyway without Kevin guiding them there. [Just because Kevin doesn't do what the submitter would do is not a mistake. Kevin knew that the family was coming over so the fresh coat he put on could have been much earlier in the day and had plenty of time to dry, plus we don't know whether he did the whole altar or just a small section. As for why he put the tarp on there is two explanations. He wanted to make it a surprise as he asks Pam, Greg and Jack to come and have a look at something. Or the other explanation was he put the tarp on to cover it from dust.]
Edit Corrected by Lummie Time
When the cat first makes an appearance, it is called Dixie. Throughout the rest of the film it is called Mr. Jinks. (There was an old cartoon, The Huckleberry Hound Show, where two mice, Pixie and Dixie, and a cat called Mr. Jinks were featured. This must have been pointed out to the filmmakers during shooting, and they decided to change the cat's name from Dixie to Mr. Jinks.) [When the cat first appears it is called Jinxie. Not Dixie. The cat's name is Mr. Jinks and Jinxie is a nickname.]
Edit Corrected by moviemogul
In the background in the scene in the airport store room there is a picture in the background which die hard Robert De Niro fans would know is his own; he was a full-time artist until his career took off. [Actually, it was Robert De Niro Sr., Robert's father, who was a contemporary artist and died in 1993.]
Edit
In the scene where Greg is on the roof and Jack is speaking Thai, Greg dives to stop Jinx from jumping. Then it shows a wide view and it's normal, but when everyone comes out to see the fire, Greg dives on a little roof that wasn't there before. [When you look at the wide shot, you see that the 'little roof' is above the main part of the house and does not extend to the section of the house where Greg dives and Mr. Jinx falls. The 'little roof' is there the entire time.]
Edit
Greg is calling for Jinx in the car, and there is no reason for him to do it because even if the cat could hear him over the sound of the car, the windows are rolled up. [He is not really calling for Jinx, but is merely making the noises as a sort of mantra to make Jinx appear at the right moment. Many people do this, even when looking for inanimate objects.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
When Greg is leaving to go to the airport, he's wearing what appear to be the same clothes he was wearing when he and Pam first arrived in New York. When he's waiting to board the plane at the airport, his shirt has changed. [He has gotten his suitcase back at this point, and has had plenty of opportunity to change at the airport. There is even a shot of him stuffing his clothes back into the bag while he is waiting (and you never see him take them out, this happens off camera).]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
During the "race" scene, there is a right turn arrow painted on the pavement in Jack's lane at the second stop light. When they pull away, the right turn lane arrow is no longer there. [The right turn arrow is painted farther back in the lane. When they pull away, they don't show enough of the lane to see the arrow.]
Edit
In the scene at the dinner table when De Niro asks Greg to say grace, De Niro has an empty plate and his hands on the table. It alternates between shots of the other people at the table and when it shows De Niro again, he is handing Greg a bowl of food, then it goes back to him with an empty plate. [His plate is never empty. It has food on it from the very beginning.]
Edit
When Robert De Niro gives Ben Stiller the manual polygraph test at the airport, he uses his thumbs to supposedly take Stiller's pulse to determine whether or not he is telling the truth. However, De Niro should have used his index fingers as thumbs have their own pulse. [Pam mentions that Jack is a human lie detector, so he might just be using the thumbs on the wrist as a way to distract Greg from the stuff he's really looking for.]
Edit
When Greg asks the kid behind the counter if they have the Nicorette patches, he says no, and hands him a pack of the Nicorette gum. However, the package to the left of the gum, and possibly to the right, are patches. [Nicorette is gum. The packages on both sides are Nicorette. Nicoderm is the name of the patches.]
Edit
In the water volleyball scene at Kevin's you notice that Focker's side is walking around in the pool, but in the background you see a diving board...since when do you dive in three feet of water? [There are pools that can be raised and lowered mechanically. Kevin could have one of these pools.]
Edit Time
When Ben Stiller is getting ready to board his flight back to Chicago, you notice that the computer screen the gate agent is standing directly in front of is not real, you can tell by the red tape stuck to the screen. [It is not entirely clear that it is tape, it could simply be a red background navigation bar across screen.]
Edit Corrected by Jack's Revenge
When Stiller spikes the ball, it hits Pam's sister on the top of her head but there is blood coming from her nose. [It hits her over the eye and the top of the nose, therefore it's quite possible for her to get a nosebleed.]
Edit Corrected by David Mercier

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