Why Paul Walker Didn't Care If People 'Clowned' On Meet The Deedles
I wish I could say 1998's "Meet The Deedles" was an underrated Disney movie but I can't. In truth, it's probably just about right-rated. Critics wasted no time laying into this frankly bizarre attempt at emulating the buddy comedy magic of such classics as "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" and "Dumb and Dumber" at a time when that goofball subgenre was quite clearly on its last legs. It's one of those movies where you would love to have been in the pitch meeting just to see how it was explained and what actually made Disney greenlight it.
The company had acquired DIC Entertainment as part of its 1996 Capital Cities/ABC deal and was seemingly happy for DIC's newly-created live-action department to use Disney's distribution power to pump "Meet The Deedles" out into the world — like some noxious pollutant contributing to the overall degradation of the cultural atmosphere. I know that's a bit harsh, but it's only out of sheer bewilderment at how this thing was made.
To take a more positive approach, "Meet The Deedles" is one of those distinctly '90s creations that simply couldn't have belonged to any other time in history. Just take a look at the poster. That bizarre tidal wave hair effect, the smug-for-no-reason expression. What is this movie about? I vaguely recall seeing that poster in Blockbuster as a kid and it became a part of the cultural wallpaper of my childhood and didn't seem all that weird. Looking at it now it stokes vague '90s nostalgia and for that, I can't be too mean about it. Either way, were Paul Walker still with us, it wouldn't bother him in the slightest if anyone was mean about his ill-fated late-'90s buddy comedy.
'People clown it all the time'
Led by first-time director Steve Boyum, Paul Walker and Steve Van Wormer play slacker brothers Phil and Stew Deedle respectively, who live out their teenage days in Hawaii by surfing, ditching school, and living off their dad's fortune. To return to that hypothetical Disney pitch meeting, just imagine being sold this kind of plot: Phil and Steve are surfer dudes (because, '90s) who speak almost exclusively in Disney's idea of surfer slang and get expelled from school after drop-kicking a cop in the face. From there, we move from Hawaii to Wyoming, where the brothers are enrolled in a boot camp at Yellowstone National park by their father. Sound good? It gets better.
From here Phil and Steve get mistaken for two naturalists and are hired by the National Park before discovering a conspiracy to literally steal the Old Faithful geyser (no, Nicolas Cage is not behind it) and divert it to a new rival park. Who's plotting such an insane plan? Celebrated actor and director Dennis Hopper, of course. Hopper plays Frank Slater, a former Yellowstone ranger intent on putting his old park ... out of business, I guess? And yes, you've probably guessed by now that Phil and Steve do foil the whole plot with the help of a "P-dog" — that's their little prairie dog friend. Also, Robert Englund is there. Now, gimme that $24 million dollar budget.
It's wacky, nonsensical, and unabashedly silly. And Paul Walker knew it. In fact, the actor had about the healthiest attitude to "Meet The Deedles" you could have. In an IGN interview, he reflected on his experience saying, "That was cool, that was a good time. People clown it all the time, but I'm like 'Whatever!?' It was fun."
Meet The Deedles is actually 'cool as ****'
Evidently, critics didn't see it the same way as Paul Walker. I love the image of Roger Ebert sitting through this movie in a theater surrounded by its target pre-teen audience and having some sort of neural meltdown, only to surmise that it's still worth one and a half stars — Why Roger? What's the half-star for if you can't, "Recommend it for anyone who might have climbed a little higher on the evolutionary ladder," than an 11-year-old?
Ebert wasn't the only one who wasn't a fan. Nearly every critic derided Disney's miss-timed attempt at the goofball subgenre, to which the only logical response is Walker's own. It probably was fun shooting "Meet The Deedles," and the actor also got to tap Hopper for some advice on-set. As he told IGN, in his lovable "Inside SoCal" way, the veteran actor was, "Cool as ****," and was, "Really down-to-earth." In fact, according to Walker, Hopper's wisdom gained over a decades-long career gave him the appearance of a "wise tree in the mystical video game" — a quote I wish had been used during some "in memoriam" piece at the Oscars after Hopper's death.
Following "Meet The Deedles," Walker of course went on to have a varied yet successful career, and you know what, "Meet The Deedles" isn't quite the stain on that resumé that critics seemed to think. It was misguided and genuinely odd, but it was also kind of charmingly irreverent and as our friend Roger Ebert surmised, still perfectly serviceable for "a theater full of 11-year-old boys." And what's wrong with that? You know what, I feel bad for "clowning" the film earlier. Go watch "Meet The Deedles" on Disney+ now and embrace the Walker philosophy over Ebert's.