Dickie Roberts had it all fame, fortune, and even a loving family before it all came crashing down. Dickie was a famous child star during the 1970's where he had catch phrases, limos and people doting on him like a young Prince. That was until the ratings dropped on his TV show and Dickie found himself out of the public graces and all washed up before he even reached puberty.

Now, in his 30's, Dickie is desperate to make a comeback and he's willing to do anything to make it all happen again. His ace of Spades in the hole is an amazing script that is certain to once again catapult him back into household name status. The biggest obstacle standing between Dickie and his dreams is the fact that the director of the project feels that Dickie lacks the depth to carry off this very mature role, because of one insignificant little problem - Dickie never had a childhood.

Not to be turned away by such a trifling detail, Dickie decides to simply hire a family so that he might quickly simulate a childhood, learn the drill and land the part - bada bing, where do I sign? Before long Dickie finds what he thinks to be the perfect family, hires them and sets out to recapture his long-lost childhood. So what if the mother hates him and the kids think the idea is pure insanity, Dickie is determined to make it work. After all his career and very livelihood is riding on this chance to quickly acquire some experience in human normalcy.

I have said it before and I will say it again David Spade is not cut out to carry the lead in a comedy. When he was playing the sidekick and straight man to Chris Farley he was hilarious. He can do the wise-cracking second banana, which he's proven several times, but as a leading man he's done nothing but Just Shoot Himself in the foot. Almost all of the funny moments in this movie are when Spade is not the lead character and the other actors are doing funny things.

Spade's greatest liability is that he has a serious tendancy to get on your nerves and stay there, when it's up to him to carry a film. Thus rather than root for him - like you would Adam Sandler (no matter how bad the film) you almost want Spade to fail - just because he's bugging you so much.

Naturally, the filmakers opt for the happy ending route, even though if you took a poll you might find a surprising number of respondants voting for some sort of horrible household accident as a more popular ending for this misbegotten project. I'll be the first to confess that this film made me laugh a number of times, but most of these had nothing to do with Spade.

Who knows how David Spade continues to land leading parts in studio comedies? He can be a funny guy, but his shtick works better from the sidelines than it does from the 50 yard line. The obvious crowd-pleaser of the film is watching Emmanuel Lewis (of Webster fame) kick the crap out of David Spade; I just wish a truck would have taken Lewis out with him. The sounds bad, huh?

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