Images via Netflix

Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger, can I take your order?

I feel anybody who grew up in the ’90s and had the luxury of having cable TV knows those words all too well, because those kids grew up watching Nickelodeon, and if you knew Nickelodeon you knew All That and if you knew All That you knew about Good Burger.

All That was the kid’s answer to Saturday Night Live, featuring comedy sketches, and musical guests. Hell, it even premiered in a primetime spot, 8:30PM on Saturday nights as part of Nickelodeon’s SNICK programming block.

Like SNL, All That was instrumental in helping elevate the careers of several of its stars including Amanda Bynes, Gabriel Iglesias, and Nick Cannon, Kel Mitchell, and Kenan Thompson and like SNL, All That had its share of memorable sketches one of which was Good Burger.

The Good Burger sketches centered on Ed, the dimwitted and somewhat inept cashier of Good Burger whose odd behavior would create humorous situations when he dealt with customers and or other Good Burger employees.

Continuing in the vein of following SNL’s footsteps the success of All That and the Good Burger sketches led to the production of a full-length Good Burger movie.

The plot of Good Burger is this: On the last day of school, high school slacker, Dexter Reed decides to drive his mother’s car to school while she’s away on a business trip. On the way home from school Dexter accidentally crashes into his teacher Mr. Wheat’s car. Faced with legal troubles due to the fact that he does not have car insurance or a driver’s license Dexter agrees to give up his summer vacation by getting a job so he can pay for the damages himself.

At first Dexter gets a job at the soon-to-be-opening Mondo Burger but he is quickly fired by Mondo’s Burger’s owner, Kurt Boswell due to his poor performance. While wallowing in self-pity at the smaller Good Burger restaurant across the street, Dexter meet’s Ed, Good Burger’s naive but kind-hearted cashier who gets him a job at Good Burger as a delivery driver.

When Mondo Burger opens, Good Burger’s sales and survival are quickly threatened due to Mondo Burger flashy appearance and the fact that Mondo Burgers’ burgers are significantly larger yet still costs the same as Good Burger’s.

All seems lost for the employees at Good Burger until Dexter discovers a special sauce created by Ed that they start putting in their burgers which helps revitalizes their business and earns Ed a share of the burger sales which causes Dexter to trick Ed into signing a contract which makes him entitled to a large portion of Ed’s money so that he can pay back his debts faster.

With Ed’s sauce causing a sudden increase in Good Burger’s sales, Kurt tries to get it for Mondo Burger first by offering Ed a higher paying job at Mondo Burger and later by sending over a beautiful employee named Roxanne over to seduce Ed and trick him into revealing the sauce recipe to her, both attempts fail spectacularly due to Ed’s naivety and ineptness.

Later while having lunch behind Good Burger Ed and Dexter discover that there is something odd with Mondo Burger’s hamburgers after seeing a dog refuse to eat one. The two infiltrate Mondo Burger’s kitchen to see what is going on and discover that Mondo Burger is using Triampathol, a highly illegal food additive to create their giant hamburger patties.

The two are discovered by Kurt who has them committed to a mental asylum in order to keep them from revealing Mondo Burger’s secret. Kurt then decides to sneak into Good Burger and taint their supply of Ed’s sauce with shark poison where they are discovered by Otis, an elderly Good Burger employee. To keep Otis silent Kurt has Otis committed to the same mental asylum he had to Dexter and Ed sent to.

At the asylum Otis reveals to Dexter and Ed Kurt’s plan to poison their sauce. The three of them escape the asylum and get to Good Burger just in time to stop people from eating the tainted sauce.

Ed and Dexter then head back to Mondo Burger to get evidence of Kurt’s illegal business practices. While Dexter distracts Kurt and his men, Ed takes the entire Mondo Burger supply of Triampathol and dumps it into their meat, creating giant unstable burgers which causes mass destruction inside Mondo Burger which attracts police and fire services who discover Kurt’s illegal operation.

Kurt and his men are arrested while Dexter gives what money he has to his teacher for car repairs with the promise of having the remainder paid back to him by the end of summer before destroying the contract he drew up Ed.

Ed and Dexter are hailed as heroes and the movie ends with Ed taking his place as Good Burger’s cashier and saying his catchphrase “Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger. Can I take your order?”

The cast of Good Burger consists of:

Kel Mitchell as Ed, the protagonist of the film. Ed is basically identical to his character from the Good Burger sketches. Laid back, and showing signs of diminished intelligence, Ed speaks like a stereotypical California surfer, his childlike and inept behavior are the source of the comedy as they put him in funny situations such as:

Showering while still fully dressed.

Trying to see if a Good Burger and Mondo Burger sound different.

Putting grapes up his nose and dancing to cheer Dexter up.

Attempting to put a french fry through his head.

Trying to fix the ice cream machine from the inside.

Putting fries up his nose when things are slow at Good Burger.

And wearing women’s lingerie when he and Dexter dress up as women to infiltrate Mondo Burger. I know this was intended to be a joke but whoever did the wardrobe choice for Mitchell went a bit overboard with it.

Despite his poor intelligence, Ed is a kind-hearted and well-meaning character who loves his job and loves Good Burger. Ed’s entire life pretty much revolves around Good Burger which is established early on in the film when he dreams about being at work, surrounded by flying talking hamburgers before waking up revealing that he sleeps in his hat and uniform…

… which he later on wears on his date with Roxanne.

Ed’s love and loyalty towards Good Burger are the driving force that keeps him from defecting to Mondo Burger despite Kurt’s offers of more money.

Back in the ’90s and ’80s characters who seemed to be the less intelligent than others always spoke like they were stereotypical surfers and saying dude a lot. I think the idea was the association that stereotypical surfers are laid back slackers who never paid attention to anything. Although looking back as now I see that society viewed surf culture as being closely tied to hippie culture so there’s the subtler implication that surfers are laid back and less intelligent because they fried their brains with drugs.

Ed’s surfer personality was a good fit for him because it went well with the movie’s theme song, “We’re All Dudes,” a ska song performed by Kel Mitchell himself and the band Less than Jake. (Sorry for the crappy quality but it’s the best I could find on YouTube).

Even though Ed shows his slowness Ed does demonstrate his moment of intelligence at the end of the film when he explains his reasoning for pouring all of Mondo Burger’s supply of Triampathol into their meat saying:

I thought that if I took the can, there was a good chance that I’d get caught, but even I did get the Triampathol to the proper authorities, Kurt would hire some powerful attorneys who would dispute any charges brought against him or Mondo Burger by manipulating the legal system and the way America’s court system is congested these days, it would take months to convict him of anything. So, I thought I’d take matters into my own hands and dump the Triampathol into the meat supply, making Mondo Burger a victim of its own foul play.

Right before Good Burger came out Mitchell along with Kenan Thompson were had become essentially Nickelodeon royalty. Their success on All That cemented them as a comedic duo which led to them getting their own series, Kenan & Kel which ran for four seasons as well as led to them making appearances together on Sister, Sister, The Steve Harvey Show, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, and Cousin Skeeter.

After All That Mitchell would end up splitting up from Thompson and would go on to do various things including a part in the 1999 movie Mystery Men as Invisible Boy, voicing T-Bone on Clifford the Big Red Dog, and competing on season 28 of Dancing with the Stars.

Out of all the things Mitchell has done after All That I think the thing he should be most proud of is hosting Dance 360 with Fredro Starr of the hardcore rap group Onyx. (Also, if the first girl in the above clip seems familiar she should. That’s Caity Lotz of DC’s Arrowverse fame).

Kenan Thompson as Dexter Reed the deuteragonist of the film. Dexter is a stereotypical slacker, lazy, unmotivated, which is clearly established when he is first introduced in the film.

Thompson is probably the most famous person to come out of not just Good Burger movie but All That itself. Prior to All That Thompson had parts in the Disney films Heavyweights, and The Mighty Ducks 2 and 3. After All That Thompson would have supporting roles in Love Don’t Cost a Thing, Barbershop 2: Back in Business, and Snake’s on a Plane as well as playing Fat Albert in the live-action Fat Albert movie. However, Thompson’s most high-profile work which also in my opinion is a symbol of him growing up is his work as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, a role which I heard he beat out Kel Mitchell for and which he has the distinction of being the longest-tenured cast member in the show’s history.

Comedian, David Adkins who is better known as Sinbad played Mr. Wheat, Dexter’s short-tempered, ’70’s obsessed high school teacher who he crashes into and is forced to repay in order to avoid legal action.

Most kids today may not know who Sinbad is but I remember when Good Burger came out he was at the top of his career. A string of successful HBO comedy specials led to him becoming host of It’s Showtime at the Apollo, as well as starring roles in the movies First Kid, Jingle All the Way, and Houseguest and his own sitcom, The Sinbad Show which earned him a Kid’s Choice Award nomination for “Favorite Television Actor.” Between his Kid’s Award nomination and his at the time recent film-roles which established him as such a kid-friendly actor it was a basically a no-brainer to put him in this movie.

A recurring joke within the movie is that Mr. Wheat is always damaged.

Whether it’s his oddly decorated mailboxes which he has an odd attachment to.

Or his freshly repaired car which is crushed by a giant decorative hamburger during the movie’s climax.

Jan Schweiterman as Kurt Bozwell, the Mondo Burger’s evil owner who will stop at nothing to make it the number 1 restaurant in the world.

There’s not that much I can tell you about Schweiterman, a quick glance at his IMDB page shows that except for 4 appearances on the TV show Felicity he hasn’t really done anything that memorable or noteworthy. In fact, Good Burger is probably his highest profile role in his entire career.

Abe Vigoda as Otis, Good Burger’s elderly fry cook who stumbles upon Kurt’s plan to poison Good Burger’s supply of Ed’s sauce.

Vigoda is probably best known for playing Salvatore Tessio in the Godfather trilogy which makes him the most random person in the film. I’m guessing the character of Otis was put in because the writers thought it would be funny if one of the employees was a cranky old man and somehow, they got Vigoda to be that old man.

Shar Jackson plays Monique, a female employee at Good Burger who serves as Dexter’s romantic interest but the relationship doesn’t really go anywhere. She does serve as a bit of a conscience for Dexter, discovering the unfair contract he had written up for Ed and trying to guilt Dexter into coming clean with Ed about it. However even though Dexter does do the right thing at the end, it doesn’t seem like she knows about it.

1 thing that really stuck out to me about Jackson is during the double date scene with her Dexter, Ed, and Roxanne and she shows up wearing a knitted hat that matched her outfit. Today we have hipsters wearing their stupid fedora hats (or in some cases trillby hats which they think are fedoras), but I remember in the ’90s we had fashionistas wearing weird hats, a style that I remember was popularized by Mayim Bialik in Blossom and the movie Clueless.

Aside from being a main character on the sitcom Moesha, Jackson’s career consists mainly of guest roles on a variety of TV shows. However, her biggest claim to fame has to be being Mr. Britney Spears, Kevin Federline’s other baby mama.

Dan Schneider played Mr. Baily, Good Burger’s owner and manager who relies on Good Burger’s success in order to care for his elderly mother. Schneider was also one of Good Burger’s writers.

A children’s television writer and producer who was referred to by The New York Times in two separate articles as “the Norman Lear of children’s television” and “the master of a television genre,” Schneider played a big part in the creation and success of All That before going on to create several other popular Nickelodeon shows including Kenan & Kel, The Amanda Show, Drake & Josh, Zoey 101, iCarly, and Victorious.

Schneider would keep working for Nickelodeon until 2018 when Nickelodeon announced that they would be ending their relationship with Schneider and his production company, Schneider’s Bakery. At the time of his termination it got out that Schneider had an alleged history of behavior problems which included “temper issues” and tweets showing photos of young actresses’ feet.

Ron Lester played Spatch, Good Burger’s fry cook. A walking movie trope, Spatch is a physically large character depicted with animalistic behavior who instead of talking communicates with grunts and animal sounds.

Aside from Good Burger Ron Lester played Billy Bob in Varsity Blues, an overweight but powerful and loyal football player. Lester would later go on to play Reggie Ray, a parody of his Varsity Blues character in Not Another Teen Movie.

I remember once I stumbled on Access Hollywood while they were doing a spotlight on Lester, revealing how he had been overweight since childhood and talked about how he underwent gastric bypass surgery to lose the weight and almost died on the operating table. Lester died in 2016 at the age of 45 due to liver and kidney failure.

Josh Server played Fizz, the guy who runs Good Burger’s drive thru. Server is another cast member of All That alongside Kenan and Kel. A quick peak at Server’s IMDB page reveals that after Good Burger Server mostly continued acting on other Nickelodeon shows, more specifically shows that were produced by Schneider’s Bakery.

Aside from the cast main cast Good Burger was also loaded with cameos and appearances from people who would go on to other things.

Linda Cardellini played Heather, a self-described psychopath committed to the same insane asylum Dexter and Ed were imprisoned in for

Breaking into the zoo and freeing all the kangaroos.

Due to her interaction with Ed and the fact that she’s insane and Ed isn’t quite all there, Heather could be seen as the closest thing Ed has to a love interest in the movie.

Most people would recognize Cardellini for playing Velma Dinkley in the first 2 live-action Scooby Doo movies and Lindsay Weir on Freaks and Geeks as well as Hawkeye’s wife in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Avengers: Endgame. Cardellini has also had parts in Brokeback Mountain, Grandma’s Boy, Green Book and has done voice work for Gravity Falls and Regular Show.

J. August Richards played Griffin, one of Kurt’s henchmen. Today, Richards is better known for playing Charles Gunn on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff, Angel and as Mike Peterson/Deathlok on Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD.

Marques Houston played Jake, Dexter’s friend who was in the car when Dexter crashed. A singer as well as an actor Houston was in R&B group Immature which would later become known as IMx before embarking on a solo career. Houston also played annoying neighbor, Roger on Sister, Sister and was one of the main characters in You Got Served.

Lori Beth Denberg played Connie Muldoon, a customer with a Minnesota accent who basically breaks Ed’s brain with her huge and complicated character.

Denberg is actually another cast member from All That with Connie Muldoon being of the characters she plays on the show. As you can see from the clips above despite being played by the same actress and having the same name and mannerisms both Muldoon’s are completely different with Good Burger Connie Muldoon seeming more like a typical suburban mom/housewife while All That Connie Muldoon just seems crazy which is a perfect character for a children’s sketch comedy show.

Shaquille O’Neal played himself in a small cameo where her orders a Good Burger after a game.

I remember in the ’90s how popular Shaq was, especially with children. His popularity plus the fact that at the time Shaq had just recently relocated to Los Angeles to play for the Lakers all contributed to Nickelodeon getting him for Good Burger.

Carmen Electra played Roxanne, the woman Kurt hires to try to seduce the sauce recipe from Ed.

Like Shaq, Electra was super popular in the ’90s, however her status as a sex symbol made me question why she was put in Good Burger, a children’s movie. However, I’m thinking her popularity on Nickelodeon’s sister station, MTV was why they choose her for Good Burger.

George Clinton plays an insane asylum patient in the scene where Dexter and Ed get all the other inmates dancing in order to distract the guards.

I’m assuming the reason why George Clinton is in this movie is because the song they used in the escape scene was “(Not Just) Knee Deep” which he wrote. Clinton also wrote the song “Do Fries Go with That Shake?” which was on the movie’s soundtrack and is also an appropriate song for a movie about a burger restaurant.

Robert Wuhl played an irate construction worker at the beginning of the movie who is upset with Good Burger’s customer service. Wuhl I remember most from playing Alexander Knox in the 1989 Batman movie. Even though Wuhl is only in the film for like 45 seconds in the first 3 minutes of the film he just really stuck in my mind because he seemed so familiar but I couldn’t figure out where I saw him from until years later when I had internet access and could look it up.

Watching Good Burger as an adult there were parts that I never realized how dark they were when I was a kid.

For instance, in the beginning of the movie you have Ed rollerblading to work before getting tangled up with some girls jumping rope and dragging one of them down the street. This is before Ed bumps into a mother and accidentally ends up with her baby which he loses when he skates into a basketball game and loses the baby as it gets confused for the ball and thrown through the hoop.

Then you have Otis. Like I said earlier the idea with Otis is an old guy working at a neighborhood burger joint with kids is supposed to be funny but Otis is super old-like near death old, which seems a bit more depressing than it does seem funny.

When we’re first introduced to Otis it’s when Ed is asking Mr. Baily to hire Dexter, telling Mr. Baily that he can do fries but Mr. Baily tells Ed that Otis does fries, to which Ed responds by saying “yeah, but look at him. How much longer could he possibly live?” We then cut to Otis who is sitting by the fryer wearing an oxygen mask. If you think about it, Otis is an elderly man with health problems, yet circumstances are forcing him to work a minimum wage job. In fact, Otis’s first words in the movie are “I should have died years ago.” Looking at this today especially now with so many people forced to work because they can’t afford to retire, it’s more depressing than it is funny.

The last thing that I thought that really made this movie dark was Kurt’s plan to poison Good Burger’s supply of sauce. Trying to sabotage your competition by committing murder and hoping they get blamed for it? That’s a pretty extreme length to go to. On top of that they also emphasize Kurt’s plan by showing him with a vial that is clearly labeled poison as well as with skull and crossbones to help emphasize to people who can’t read (IE children) that this is really bad stuff.

Another thing that stuck out to me were the vehicles.

The first vehicle that really stuck out at me and it should have considering how much it was in all the promotional materials was the Burger Mobile. I feel that the inclusion of the Burger Mobile was the result of how so many shows and movies at the time were known for having a signature vehicle; Batman has his Batmobile, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have their Turtle Van, then there’s the Pontiac Trans Am from Knight Rider, the A-Team’s Van, and the DeLorean from Back to the Future.

Seeing how the movie turned out I can see why they chose to use a ’75 AMC Pacer to build the Burger Mobile on. It’s rounded shape and large glass cabin gave it a distinctive and unique shape that would make it memorable even without all the embellishments that they added for the movie while its small size also made it possible for them to drive it through the halls of the Forum for the Shaq delivery scene. I’m curious if the original plan for the Burger Mobile was to just make it look like a giant drivable hamburger, although I won’t be surprised if that plan was canceled due to budget and time constraints.

Despite being featured so heavily in promotional materials, the Burger Mobile didn’t actually see that much screen time. In fact, it was only used in two scenes: the delivery scene to Shaq and the minigolf date scene. One thing that really stuck out to me in both these scenes is that even though Dexter was specifically hired to be the delivery boy and drive the Burger Mobile we never actually see him drive it. Instead, Ed drives it on both occasions.

One thing I never noticed about the vehicles until I was older was the obvious product placement from Nissan with Dexter’s 300ZX and Mr. Wheat’s Infiniti J30.

The 300ZX choice was a good choice for Dexter, aside from the Nissan Skyline which was never sold in the US, the Z was Nissan’s apex sportscar, the fact that it slightly resembled a Ferrari and was also really expensive (in 1997 when the film was made the 300ZX’s MSRP was $33-$45,000 depending on the trim level, adjusted for inflation that would be between $53-$73,000), all helped to create this image of Dexter as a wild party boy living a care-free and fun life as well as emphasized the seriousness of how much trouble Dexter is in when he crashes the car.

Mr. Wheat’s J30 seemed out of place. As a product of Nissan’s luxury brand, Infiniti it’s a good symbol for how screwed Dexter is but honestly back in 1997 I don’t remember Infiniti having the same level of association with luxury that other manufacturers did. If Nissan was on board for product placement I’m sure they wanted to make sure that the Infiniti brand was well-represented in the movie but considering how the J30 was their midrange car designed to bridge the gap between the G20 and Q45 I’m a bit surprised they just didn’t go with a Q45. I’m also surprised by Mr. Wheat’s rant in the movie when Dexter crashes into him. When Mr. Wheat is freaking out he tells Dexter that he paid “22,000 dollars for the car… and that’s just the base price,” it didn’t include the extras he paid for such as the “chrome” and “Detroit leather.” In reality, the starting price of a J30 in 1997 was actually way higher at $35k which almost makes it comparable in price to Dexter’s 300ZX. Although I’m guessing the reason why they didn’t want focus on getting the pricing right is because they were trying to set up the joke that Mr. Wheat was more focused on the extras he bought for the car rather than the car itself.

Looking back at it, Good Burger was a good example of what a dominating force Nickelodeon was in ’90s youth television culture. Like I said earlier, if you were a kid growing up in the ’90s who had the luxury of having cable then you knew Nickelodeon, and if you knew Nickelodeon you knew All That, and if you knew All That then you knew Good Burger and if you knew all that you knew the words “Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger, can I take your order?”