Good Burger is a 1997 American comedy film directed by Brian Robbins, starring Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell. The film evolved from the comedy sketch "Good Burger" featured on the Nickelodeon series "All That."
The film was produced by Tollin/Robbins Productions and Nickelodeon Movies and released on July 25, 1997 by Paramount Pictures.
Plot
| Spoiler Warning: The following contains important plot details of the entire film. |
On the first day of summer, dim-witted but charming Ed (Kel Mitchell) experiences a nightmare featuring talking burgers. Troubled by the nightmare, Ed shows up late to work at Good Burger.
On the same morning, Dexter (Kenan Thompson), a fellow high school student of Ed, steals his mother's car after she leaves for a business trip. Dexter accidentally crashes into his teacher, Mr. Wheat's (Sinbad) car. With no driver's license or insurance, Dexter is in danger of going to jail. Mr. Wheat agrees to allow Dexter to pay for a total of $2,500 in car damages instead of calling the police. Dexter must find a summer job to pay for the expenses.
Dexter first finds employment at Mondo Burger. After he clashes with Mondo Burger's uptight manager, Kurt Bozwell (Jan Schweiterman), he is fired and finds employment at Good Burger. There, he meets and reluctantly befriends Ed and a slew of colorful employees. Little does Dexter know Ed inadvertently caused the car accident. Ed was rushing to make a delivery on roller blades, and skated in front of Dexter, causing him to swerve and hit Mr. Wheat's car.
Dexter finds much success at Good Burger, but his success takes a turn for the worse. Across the street from Good Burger, a Mondo Burger opens. The popular Mondo Burger produces over-sized burgers, much bigger than the Good Burger burgers. With the invention of Ed's "secret sauce", Good Burger is saved. After Dexter realizes that Ed caused his car accident, Dexter takes part of Ed's credit to pay off the debt.
Ed's sauce reigns success, causing Mondo Burger's manager, Kurt to attempt to steal the sauce. First, he entices Ed with a higher hourly wage at Mondo Burger. Dedicated to Good Burger, Ed denies Kurt's request. Kurt then sends in the notorious, Roxanne (Carmen Electra) to seduce Ed and find the ingredients of the "secret sauce". With her attempts, Ed injures her, leading to her quitting her job at Mondo Burger.
Meanwhile, Dexter takes a shine to fellow employee Monique (Shar Jackson), and eventually she agrees to a double date with him along with Ed and Roxanne. The next day, however, she tells him off and breaks up with him after she discovers his attempts to cheat Ed out of most of his money from the sauce.
Later on, Ed and Dexter encounter a dog on the street and attempt to feed him a Good Burger and a Mondo Burger. The dog eats the Good Burger, but refuses to even look at the Mondo Burger, apparently sensing something wrong with the meat. Suspicious, Ed and Dexter disguise themselves as old women and enter Mondo Burger. They discover that Mondo Burger chemically induces their burgers ("The Big Booty Burger") with "Triampathol", an illegal food additive.
Kurt realizes the old women are Dexter and Ed, and kidnaps them. He sends them to the Demented Hills Mental Hospital to prevent the public from believing the Mondo Burger's secret.After sending Ed and Dexter to Demented Hills, Kurt and his employees break into Good Burger after closing hours and poison Ed's secret sauce with shark poison. When Ed and Dexter's co-worker Otis (Abe Vigoda) attempts to stop them, Kurt then takes him captive and sends him to Demented Hills, as well.
There, Otis tells the duo about Kurt's scheme to ruin the secret sauce. They devise a plan to escape. Ed begins to dance and sing, encouraging the other patients to dance. After the entire mental hospital breaks out in dance, the trio escapes the mental hospital. They steal an ice cream van to leave the hospital.
Then, Ed and Dexter break into Mondo Burger and expose the chemically-induced burgers to the police. Ed tries to take a can of Triampathol, but accidentally knocks one into the meat grinder. Ed then pours the rest of the substance into the grinder. Kurt catches Ed and Dexter.
Just before he attempts to rid the two, the Mondo Burger building begins to blow up caused by the Triampathol-overdosed burgers exploding. After the building destructs, the police arrests Kurt for illegal substance use.
With the destruction of Mondo Burger, Mr. Wheat's car is destroyed once again (much to Dexter's amusement as he hands him the first half of the money he owes him for the car damages). Ed and Dexter then walk back to Good Burger where the Good Burger employees praise the two as Good Burger heroes.
Cast
- Kel Mitchell as Ed, the inept, but well-meaning teen cashier of Good Burger.
- Kenan Thompson as Dexter Reed, a sixteen-year-old high school student who desires to slack during his summer vacation.
- Abe Vigoda as Otis, an elderly Good Burger employee who cooks the French fries.
- Jan Schweiterman as Kurt Bozwell, the C.E.O. and restaurant owner of Mondo Burger who will stop at nothing to make his food chain number one.
- Sinbad as Mr. Wheat, a teacher who demands money from Dexter for car damage.
- Shar Jackson as Monique, a Good Burger employee who scolds Dexter for using Ed's gullibility to steal most of his money, but eventually becomes his girlfriend.
- Dan Schneider as Mr. Baily, the owner and manager of Good Burger.
- Ron Lester as Spatch, the head fry cook of Good Burger.
- Lori Beth Denberg as Connie Muldoon, a customer whose extremely complex orders are too difficult for Ed to memorize.
- Josh Server as Fizz, the drive-thru employee of Good Burger.
- Ginny Schreiber as Deedee, one of the 2 female employees at Good Burger and a vegetarian.
- Linda Cardellini as Heather, an insane girl in Demented Hills that has feelings for Ed.
- Shaquille O'Neal as Himself
- George Clinton as Dancing Crazy, a Demented Hills patient.
- Robert Wuhl as an Angry Customer
- Carmen Electra as Roxanne, a henchwoman of Kurt who tries, but fails, to seduce Ed into telling his secret sauce recipe.
- Marques Houston as Jake, Dexter's high school friend.
- J. August Richards as Griffen, one of Kurt's right hand men.
- Hamilton Von Watts as Troy, Kurt's other right-hand man
- Wendy Worthington as the Demented Hills nurse.
Production
The filming dates for "Good Burger" took place from March 9, 1997 to April 1997.
Most of the film's scenes were filmed along Glendora Avenue in West Covina, California in 1996. The building known as "Good Burger" was filmed at a restaurant currently known as "Peter's El Loco" 437 Glendora Ave., West Covina, CA.
Meanwhile, Mondo Burger was located across the street at the Samantha Courtyard shopping center (with extra details added to the facade for the film).
Ed's house is located on 959 East Topeka Street, in Pasadena, California.
Box Office
"Good Burger" grossed $7.1 million during its opening weekend, finishing in 5th at the box office and went on to gross $23.7 million.
Critical Reception
Rotten Tomatoes gives "Good Burger" a score of 32% based on reviews from 38 critics.
Lisa Alspector of Chicago Reader gave the film a negative review and wrote, "The perceived notion that kids want their movies fast and furious is barely in evidenced in this 1997 comedy, a laboriously slow suburban adventure in which a teenager's summer of leisure slips through his fingers when he has to get a job—an experience that proves almost life threatening because of the cutthroat competition between two burger joints."
Andy Seiler of USA Today gave this film a score of 2/4, saying that "Good Burger is not very well done, but it does have energy."
Leonard Klady of Variety enjoyed the film and wrote, "The meat of the piece is definitely FDA cinematically approved, and perfect if you like this brand of entertainment with the works."
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, "It didn't do much for me, but I am prepared to predict that its target audience will have a good time." He gave the film two out of four stars.
Trailer
Good Burger (1997) Official Trailer