Good Burger

Good Burger
Home video promotional poster
Directed by	Brian Robbins
Produced by	Mike Tollin Brian Robbins Dan Schneider Julia Pistor (exec.)
Written by	Kevin Kopelow Dan Schneider Heath Seifert
Starring	Kenan Thompson Kel Mitchell Sinbad Abe Vigoda Shar Jackson Dan Schneider Jan Schweiterman
Music by	Stewart Copeland
Cinematography	Mac Ahlberg
Editing by	Anita Brandt-Burgoyne
Studio	Tollin/Robbins Productions Nickelodeon Movies
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	July 25, 1997 (1997-07-25)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$9,000,000
Box office	$23,712,993 (USA)

Good Burger is a 1997 American comedy film by Tollin/Robbins Productions and Nickelodeon Movies, released by Paramount Pictures, directed by Brian Robbins, and starring Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell. It was based on the comedy sketch "Good Burger" (starring Mitchell) featured on the Nickelodeon series All That.

Plot

On the first day of summer, a slacking high school student, Dexter (Kenan Thompson), steals his mother's car while she is on a business trip and accidentally crashes into and damages the car of his teacher, Mr. Wheat (Sinbad). Dexter is in danger of going to jail, as he does not have a driver's license or insurance. But Mr. Wheat agrees to let Dexter pay for the damages to both cars in exchange for not calling the police on Dexter. After determining that the damages will total $2,500, Dexter is forced to get a summer job. He winds up finding employment at Good Burger where he meets and reluctantly befriends dim witted Ed (Kel Mitchell) and a host of other colorful employees. At the time neither one of them realize it was in fact Ed who inadvertently caused Dexter's car accident.

While it seems that Dexter is on his way to repaying the money he owes, things take a turn for the worse. Across the street from Good Burger, a large fancy burger joint called Mondo Burger is about to open up, where Dexter originally found employment before Good Burger, but was fired for insulting Mondo Burger's manager, Kurt Bozwell (Jan Schweiterman). It appears that the opening of the hugely popular Mondo Burger may very well spell the end for small time Good Burger because of the over-sized burgers they produce. Fortunately, Good Burger is saved by the invention of a secret sauce made by Ed. Dexter, having realized Ed was responsible for his car accident, takes advantage of the good-hearted yet dim witted Ed in order to make money off of the secret sauce in order to pay off his debt sooner.

All seems well as Ed's sauce is a huge success. However, Mondo Burger's manager, Kurt Bozwell, makes some failed attempts to obtain the sauce. Kurt first tries to persuade Ed to quit Good Burger to work at Mondo Burger with a higher hourly wage. When Ed turns him down, Kurt sends in Roxanne (Carmen Electra) to seduce Ed alone in order to find out the recipe for Ed's sauce, but to no avail as Ed injures her. Later, Ed and Dexter suspect something's up with Mondo Burger and disguise themselves as old women, to find out that Mondo Burger chemically induces their burgers with "Triampathol", which is apparently an illegal food additive; Kurt kidnaps them and has them committed to a mental hospital so they won't tell the public.

Threatened by the success of Ed's sauce, Kurt breaks into Good Burger after closing hours and poisons Ed's secret sauce with shark poison. When Ed and Dexter's co-worker, Otis (Abe Vigoda), tries to stop him, he is committed too. He tells the duo about Kurt's scheme, so they have to plan an escape. The next morning, with the help of Ed doing a dance number and encouraging other patients to dance, the trio escapes the mental hospital via broken windows and they use an ice cream van to drive them back to Good Burger to prevent any customer from eating the poisoned sauce. Ed and Dexter then break into Mondo Burger to expose their chemically induced burgers to the police. Dexter creates a diversion, to which Ed tries to take a can of Triampathol, but clumsingly knocks one into the meat grinder. With an idea, Ed then pours some more of the substance into the grinder. Just before Kurt can do away with Ed and Dexter, the Mondo Burger building starts to rumble in destruction due to the now ridiculously gigantic burgers that have been exploding (of Triampathol overdose). In the aftermath, Kurt is arrested for using the illegal substance and Mondo Burger is destroyed, the debris crushing and destroying Mr. Wheat's car as well. Ed and Dexter then walk back to Good Burger where they both (especially Ed) are praised by the other Good Burger employees as heroes for saving Good Burger.

Cast

• Kenan Thompson as Dexter Reed
• Kel Mitchell as Ed
• Sinbad as Mr. Wheat
• Abe Vigoda as Otis
• Shar Jackson as Monique
• Dan Schneider as Mr. Bailey
• Ron Lester as Spatch
• Jan Schweiterman as Kurt Bozwell
• Josh Server as Fizz
• Linda Cardellini as Heather
• Shaquille O'Neal as Himself
• George Clinton as Demented Hills Patient
• Robert Wuhl as Angry Customer
• Carmen Electra as Roxanne
• Marques Houston as Jake
• J. August Richards as Griffen
• Lori Beth Denberg as Connie Muldoon
• Wendy Worthington as Demented Hills Nurse
• Colt Buehner as Demented Hills Patient Dr. Doom

Filming

Most of the film's scenes were filmed along S Glendora Avenue in West Covina, California.^[1] The building known as "Good Burger" in the movie was filmed at a restaurant currently known as "Manny'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.

Soundtrack

Main article: Good Burger (soundtrack)

A soundtrack containing hip hop, R&B and rock music was released on July 15, 1997 by Capitol Records. It peaked at 101 on the Billboard 200 and 65 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.

Differences from original sketch

In the original Good Burger sketch as featured on Nickelodeon's All That, Ed was one of the only featured employees of Good Burger. While occasionally other employees were shown, they were not featured characters. The other cast members of All That played recurring patrons of Good Burger who Ed annoyed with his bumbling antics and misinterpretations of their orders. The employees featured in the movie were created specifically for the film. However, on the season three premiere of All That two characters from the movie were in the Good Burger skit on the premiere episode was Ron Lester as "Spatch" and Josh Server as "Fizz".

Critical reception

Despite the popularity of the All That sketch Good Burger and the Ed character, Good Burger received largely negative reviews from film critics (only a few were positive), garnering a "Rotten" rating of 31% on Rotten Tomatoes.^[2] The film however does have a cult following.

Deleted scenes

• A scene that was not included in the release, but made it into the trailers included a customer saying to Ed, "Give me a good shake," and Ed subsequently grabbing and shaking him.

• A deleted scene that Kel Mitchell wanted to put in the film was one in which Dexter says to Ed "Excuse me a second," and Ed waits literally one second before following Dexter, but director Brian Robbins vetoed the idea.

• The head-butting scene was removed by the BBFC for the UK video release, even though in the cinema release the scene was uncut.

Censorship

Nickelodeon revived Good Burger and showed it on Nick@Nite on December 8, 2007. Before it was shown, TV-PG replaced to TV-G, Nickelodeon had two of the actors record over what they said in the previous film to censor it for kids. The first censor is when Otis says "I think I broke my ass". Nickelodeon censored it so he said "I think I broke my tail". The other is when the man in the mental institution (played by George Clinton) says "Ooh, this music sucks", which was censored to "Ooh, this music stinks". The actors' lips almost clearly show the original lines, and closed captioning will reveal the original lines. Subsequent showings, such as the January 17, 2010 and ABC Family showings, have also been censored in the same fashion (although the "music sucks" line remained).

References

1. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119215/locations
2. ^ "Good Burger (1997)". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/good_burger/. Retrieved 1 April 2011. 

External links

• Good Burger at the Internet Movie Database
• Good Burger at AllRovi
• Good Burger at Rotten Tomatoes