Greg M. Glienna (born in Chicago, Illinois, August 23, 1963)[citation needed] is an American director and screenwriter best known as the creator of the original 1992 film Meet the Parents.
[3] He is also the co-author (with Mary Ruth Clarke) of the play Suffer the Long Night which had its Los Angeles premiere August 2008.
He attended Columbia College Chicago before dropping out to study improvisational comedy at The Second City while also making short films.
He conceived of the core idea for the original Meet the Parents after acting out a scene with a friend wherein he portrayed a man meeting his girlfriend's father, turning it into a short film entitled The Vase, in which he played a man meeting both of his girlfriend's parents who breaks their prized vase.
Hoping to make this concept into a full-length feature, Glienna wrote the 80-page screenplay for Meet the Parents alongside Mary Ruth Clarke in one month, to the approval of comedian Emo Philips, who signed on as a producer, wrote the film's title theme, and cameoed as a video store employee.