Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star

Reviewed by EWAN McDONALD

(Herald rating: * *)

As a kid, Dickie Roberts (David Spade) starred in a hit sitcom. Now he's 35 and washed up — well, washing cars, to be precise. The closest he comes to fame and fortune these days is on Thursday nights, when he plays poker with other child stars — you'll recognise Danny Partridge (Danny Bonaduce) and teen idol Leif Garrett.

Dickie's agent, Sidney (Jon Lovitz) can't get work for him, even playing someone rather like himself in Rob Reiner's new movie. But Dickie has a spot of luck: he runs into Brendan Fraser, who sets up a sitdown with Reiner. "I don't think you can play the part, because you're not a real person," Reiner tells Dickie. He never had a real childhood.

Wo-oh, you can feel what's coming now. Dickie advertises for a "real family" so he can spend a month reclaiming those lost years. He happens upon a loudmouthed advertising man, George Finney (Craig Bierko), and his nice nuclear set-up: Grace, the mother (Mary McCormack), and the kids, Sally (Jenna Boyd) and Sam (Scott Tessa). Together they will do all the fun things that Middle American families do. Or did, well before the kids hit 35.

In the hands of Adam Sandler's production company, what is set up to be a satire about the demons of celebrity and the star system flops into sentimentality and those all-too familiar jokes for 12-year-old boys.

But don't turn it off too soon. At the end, Spade musters several dozen child stars for Child Stars On Your Television, a musical backdrop with a chorus featuring such once-famous, now-forgotten faces as Garrett, Partridge, Eddie Munster and Marsha Brady.


The disc follows the e.g. rule: the worse the movie, the more features on the DVD. Two commentaries (director Sam Weisman; Spade and writer Fred Wolf); Comedy Central and True Hollywood Story features; Spade and Wolf explaining how they wrote the screenplay; nine deleted scenes and the usual promotions. Perhaps the most interesting feature is Behind Child Stars On Your Television, in which Spade and crew inveigle onetime child actors into appearing in the film and end-credit song.