TV REVIEWS : ‘Parents’ Gives Teen-Ager a Lesson in Role Reversal

Parental flight hits suburbia in a holiday-tinged comedy about a mom and dad who run away from home when their irresponsible, self-absorbed teen-age son becomes too obnoxious in “The Day My Parents Ran Away” (at 8 tonight, Channels 11 and 6).

Reversing parent/teen relationships, the Fox production is an amusing, cleverly conceived morality play about a shiftless son (the lightly comedic Bobby Jacoby) who is abandoned by his parents (the sweetly dim Blair Brown and quietly simmering Matt Frewer) for being a lazy slob and learns to value family life.

Written by Handel Glassberg and directed by Martin Nicholson--expanding a short film (“Missing Parents”) he had made earlier for the Discovery Program--the movie, without too much sentimentality, blends material that echoes themes from “Risky Business” to “Pinocchio.”

Shocked when Dad’s overstretched credit card is swallowed up by a bank window, tired of making his own sandwiches and compelled to mend a fractured romance with a divine girlfriend (Brigid Conley Walsh), the adolescent experiences a mind-numbing transformation, complete with a change of attire, haircut and even new employment. It’s all handled with a winning lack of pretension.