Peggy Roberts was an actress who accidentally got pregnant. She didn’t know who her father was and she felt that her baby, Dickie, slowed her career. She decided to further Dickie’s acting career by having him try child roles every day, regardless of whether he was a girl role. His mother only loved him when he had a successful acting job. He achieved great success when he joined the TV show called “The Glimmer Gang”. After seven years of being on television, the show was canceled and his mother left. Dickie grew into a troublesome young man who was very rude and never stopped helping anyone unless he helped them.
During a car trip with his girlfriend, Cindy, the car gets a flat tire. As Dickie begins to change the tire, the car falls off the cliff and explodes. His girlfriend hitchhikes and leaves him behind. When he returns to civilization, he calls her but she never returns his calls. She thinks that even though she had a successful childhood career, she is currently on a road to nowhere.
He starts parking cars for a restaurant and only gets hired because the owner felt sorry for him. He decides to borrow a car from the restaurant in search of opportunities to further his acting career. While he is driving, he is very rude to a man and drives off. The man writes down the license plate, which actually belongs to Rob Reiner. He then meets with Brenden Frasure, who says that he will see what he can do to get him an audition. Brenden arrives and asks her to visit the producer, Rob Reiner. He says that he would be perfect for the lead role physically, but mentally he misses his childhood. As a result, he is a troubled young man who cannot act appropriately for the role. Hoping to land the role, he decides to hire a family to provide him with childhood experiences.
After visiting many strange situations, Dickie finds the Prune family. George the father agreed to let Dickie live with the family and he soon settles with the rest of the family. At first, the family is tolerant of Dickie, but the children Sam and Sally call him a strange danger. As he moves in, he begins to fill his bed with water. Sally and Sam warn him about the moving water game. Since he is not familiar with the game, he does not take the warning seriously. He ends up struggling with the hose as it hits him. Sam comes to the rescue and turns off the water.
Dickie doesn’t understand manners, which shows at dinner in George’s absence. He uses language that is not appropriate to use at the table or in front of children. When he comes back from the bathroom, he overhears the family talking about how they don’t want him around and it is suggested that he spend the night in the tree house. So he makes the best of a bad situation and decorates the tree house and plays music. This engages the child’s curiosity and they see what he is doing. They decide it’s not so bad and stay to tell ghost stories.
It starts to rain so everyone goes to bed inside the house. She begins to have a nightmare. Grace, his new mother comes and wakes him up. Then she sings him to sleep. The next day, the kids bring out the Slip’N’Slide. Since Dickie doesn’t have this experience, he tries it out before the water is turned on and the carpet burns. He tries it once in the open water but decides he’s lame. He adds canola oil to spice things up and ends up going through the fence.
The next morning, Dickie insists that Grace take him for a stroller ride. While driving down the street, they run into their next door neighbor, who is angry that the leaves from the prune tree are falling on his lawn. He then makes fun of Dickie in the stroller. Dickie defends himself and Grace. Then a fan shows up and asks for a photo of Dickie. In his place, he gives her photos of his private life. He then decides to dye his hair so no one will recognize him.
Dickie walks to Sam and Sally’s school to pick them up. He realizes that a group of boys are picking on Sam, so he makes fun of them. They never bother Sam again. They all get into their mom’s car and make a quick stop for their graphic design interview. He couldn’t find the house, so Dickie decides to improvise by calling the fire department, which leads them straight to the house. As a result, Grace decides to kick him out for being irresponsible. As she is throwing him out, the waterbed jumps out. They take the discussion outside. Next door neighbors yell at them for yelling on the lawn. This time, Grace fights back and insults them. After the offended neighbors come in, Popeye the dog brings home a dead rabbit. It is owned by the same neighbors who have just been insulted. They quickly clean him up and return him to the outside cage. The neighbors find the rabbit in the cage and get scared. The rabbit died two days ago and was buried. They move due to the devilish rabbit taking Dickie out of the doghouse for a while.
The next day, a moving truck moves into a new family with a girl named Barbie. Sam falls in love with her but doesn’t speak to her. Dickie breaks the ice between the two and then decides to learn to ride a bike.
While getting ice for his bumps from the bike ride, he makes a deal with Grace. He will do whatever it takes if she promises to help him be a boy. He first demands that she remove the sanitary gloves that he has been wearing for ten years. George the father comes home and is mad about Dickie’s hair because he arranged for Dickie to do a commercial for his car business and storms off. They then have a realistic conversation about how George has always been gone and they feel like the marriage is falling apart.
That night, Dickie helps Sally with a dance routine for a school test, which she masters. That night, his girlfriend Cindy visits him. George says that he can stay with her since he is attracted to her. Dickie, on the other hand, doesn’t want her there. He feels that he will get in the way of her learning and is still angry that she left him in the desert and didn’t return his calls. So he starts being clumsy to get her to leave. He even hits her over the head with a cork and talks about the kids all the time. She leaves.
The next morning, the family fakes a Christmas morning with a red bicycle. Dickie tries to get excited, but he doesn’t feel it. Then the family surprises him with his favorite game, Candyland. He now he knows what it’s like to feel like a kid on Christmas morning.
Will Dickie get the role in the movie with all his efforts? Look and discover.
