Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star

Dickie Roberts was a familiar face on television in the 1970s, a child star whose show made him famous across the United States. Decades later he is thirty-five and working as a valet at a Hollywood restaurant, far from the career he once had. When he learns of a role that requires him to play an ordinary man, he sees a chance to return to acting, but the director dismisses him as not ordinary enough. Determined to win the part, Dickie pays a suburban family to take him in and let him experience the kind of childhood he never had.

Sam Weisman directed the film, the seventh in a directorial run that began with Mimi & Me in 1991 and includes George of the Jungle and The Out-of-Towners. David Spade stars as Dickie and co-wrote the screenplay with Fred Wolf; Adam Sandler, Jack Giarraputo and M. Blair Breard produced. Mary McCormack, Jon Lovitz, Craig Bierko, Alyssa Milano and Rob Reiner appear among a credited cast of ninety-two.

Made for a modest budget, the film earned more than it cost at the worldwide box office. Audience responses were mixed: it holds a 5.6 rating on IMDb from about sixteen thousand votes and a 5.1 on TMDB from over two hundred. Critics rated it lower still, at 4.7 from 118 reviews, placing it below the audience scores.