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Ed: Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger, can I take your orrrrrrrder? |
Good Burger is a 1997 comedy film produced by Nickelodeon Movies and released by Paramount Pictures, directed by Brian Robbins and produced by Dan Schneider and starring Kenan Thompson, Kel Mitchell, Sinbad, Shar Jackson, Abe Vigoda, and Jan Schweiterman. The film was based on a popular recurring sketch on Nickelodeon's sketch show All That.
Carmen Electra, Shaquille O Neal, and George Clinton also make brief cameo appearances.
Good Burger was the second film to be produced by Nickelodeon Movies.
The film was released on July 25, 1997 and, unfortunately, had a budget. It opened at #5 with $7,058,333 and in total, the film earned $23,712,993 in the US & Canada. It was the 82nd most commercially successful film of its year.
Reviews for the film were mostly negative, garnering a 31% "rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
Tropes this movie follows:[]
- All Just a Dream: Ed dreams of burgers talking to him at the beginning of the movie.
- Bad Boss / Mean Boss: Kurt, who runs Mondo Burger like a Nazi boot camp.
- Bedlam House: The main characters are sent there by the Big Bad after learning the secret behind Mondo Burger's...well, mondo burgers. Also Otis, after the latter stumbled upon Mondo Burger trying to put shark poison into Ed's sauce as a form of corporate sabotage.
- Bigger Is Better: Apparently Mondo Burger's philosophy. Kurt's attempted solution to getting customers? Make their "already twice as big as Good Burger's" burgers bigger!
Employee: But they're already-- |
- This eventually massively backfires on Kurt after Ed proceeded to dump several of the acid into the burger vat, thus making the burgers so huge that when reaching the end of the assembly line, the burgers managed to violently explode in repeated succession that the restaurant manages to implode (to say little about busting Kurt himself to the police).
- Big No: Ed, when he stops the old lady from eating a poisoned good burger.
- Book Ends: The movie begins and ends with Ed saying his customary Good Burger greeting.
- Bowdlerise: TV airings changed Otis's request for Dexter to help him home due to injuring himself thanks to Ed colliding into him while rollerblading to have him say "tail" instead of the more vulgar "ass."
- Similarly, George Clinton's cameo in the insane asylum changes his line of "ooh, this music sucks!" in the same TV airings to "ooh, this music stinks!"
- Burger Fool: Subverted for Ed, but applies for Dexter.
- Butt Monkey: Mr. Wheat, Dexter's accident-prone teacher.
- Otis counts as an Iron Butt Monkey. It's incredibly impressive to watch Abe Vigoda take that many prat falls, seeing as by now he must be in his early 200's.
- Catapult Nightmare: Ed, after dreaming about talking burger and then falls down a hole.
Ed: (waking up) WELCOME TO GOOD BURGER, HOME OF THE GOOD BURGER. CAN I TAKE-- huh? |
- Catch Phrase: "Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger, can I take your order?"
- "Mess with Kurt, and you go into the grinder".
- Canon Foreigner Not counting anyone not connected to Good Burger in which the sketches took place Dexter never appeared in the sketches As well As Otis and most of the supporting staff though Kenan Thompson often did appear in the sketches as various customers.
- Chase Scene
- Chew Toy: Roxanne, an extremely hot Mondo Burger employee, who ends up getting torn to pieces in an attempt to seduce Ed into revealing his sauce recipe during a double date with Dexter and Monique.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Ed is the definition.
- Comically Missing the Point:
Otis: I caught those Mondo brats dumping shark poison in our sauce. |
- Cool Old Guy: Otis
- Crowd Song: "(Not Just) Knee Deep"
- There's even a cameo by George Clinton as one of the mental patients.
- Disappeared Dad: Dexter's dad.
- The Ditz / Idiot Hero: Ed
- The Dog Bites Back: Kurt fires and humiliates Dexter for cracking jokes. Dexter later plays a role in destroying Mondo Burger and getting Kurt arrested.
- Dumbass Has a Point:
Ed: See, I knew that if I took the can, there was a good chance I'd get caught. Then I thought that even if I did take the triambythal to the proper authorities, Kurt would hire some high-powered attorney who dispute any charges brought against him or Mondo Burger, by manipulating the legal system. And the way that America's court system is congested these days, it would have taken months to convict him of anything. So then I thought, I just take the matter into my own hands and pour the triambythal into the meat supply and let Mondo Burger be a victim of its own foul play. |
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Ed gives a hungry dog a Mondo Burger patty, but the dog won't eat it for some reason. So Ed gives him a Good Burger patty instead and it immediately eats it. This begins to make Dexter and Ed suspicious about Mondo Burger.
- Foe Yay: A fair amount implied between Ed and Kurt.
- Dexter on Kurt, "He doesn't like you; he's just trying to use you!" Ed replies with air quotes "Well that's not natural."
- Food Porn: The film is about burgers, after all, particularly the pre-title opening.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar: "If anyone can get the sauce out of Ed, she can!"
- When being drilled on Mondo Burger protocol, Kurt mentions that his employees should forget their families, because he is both their mother and father. Dexter tells one of his fellow trainees, "Kurt must look awfully strange naked."
- When Ed is about to tell the contents of the secret Good Burger Sauce and is tackled to the ground by Dexter "I like you as a friend and all but..."
- Genre Savvy: The second Roxanne tries to start asking Ed questions about his secret sauce, Dexter very quickly realizes what she's up to, and attempts to kick Ed from under the table to shut him up about the recipe. However, he ends up kicking Roxanne instead, which still managed to succeed in shutting Ed up anyway.
- Heel Realization: Dexter has this after Monique calls him out for cheating Ed out of money.
- Heroic BSOD: Ed gets this after trying to follow Connie Muldoon's order for her family reunion.
- Hey, It's That Guy!: Robert "Alexander Knox" Wuhl as a disgruntled Good Burger customer.
- Some may recognize Gunn from Angel as one of the Mondo Burger employees.
- Otis is Abe Vigoda.
- Fellow All That cast member Josh Server shows up as Fizz (Fi). And, of course, Lori Beth Denberg as Connie Muldoon.
- Linda Cardellini played Heather, who helps Dexter and Ed escape the mental institution.
- Dan Schneider himself played Mr. Bailey, the manager of Good Burger.
- Hitler Cam: Kurt's opening scene.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The illegal chemicals that Mondo Burger uses to enlarge their burgers cause the restaurant to collapse when Ed pours ALL of it into the meat supply.
- Humiliation Conga: The destruction of Mondo Burger.
- Jerkass: Kurt.
- Dexter himself is quite a Jerkass throughout the film. Thankfully, he does improve unlike the very criminal Kurt.
- Jive Turkey: Dexter's math teacher, played by Sinbad.
- Limited Wardrobe: Ed never takes his uniform off, not even in the shower.
- Literal Minded: Ed.
- Meaningful Echo: "Remember, when you mess with Good Burger, YOU go in the grinder!"
- Missing Trailer Scene: Some trailers had a man request a "Good Shake", which was followed by Ed literally shaking him.
- Mooks: Troy and Griffin (the Greek guy and the tough black guy at Mondo Burger).
- Motor Mouth: A customer with a ridiculously long and complicated order, who causes Ed's brain (what little there is of it) to blow a fuse.
- Never My Fault: Dexter, who just recognizing where he's seen Ed, blames him for the car accident that forced him to get a summer job to pay for it. He also blames him for his parents finding out he was driving without a license, which he shouldn't have been doing in the first place.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Ed explains that he poured the bottles of acid into the meat on purpose because he knew that Kurt would manipulate the legal system to his favor unless the cops discover the acid themselves as they did when the restaurant imploded; Ed then goes on to say "I'm not stupid," despite his blatant idiocy throughout the movie (as well as the All That sketch that the film is based on).
- It's implied that the initial dumping of acid was an accident on his part since he reached for the bottle, only to slip and cause several bottles to fall dominoes style before one fell into the vat containing the beef. After seeing this, he then gets the idea to actually dump much more acid into the beef. Also, he then hands Dexter a can and after everyone including Dexter assumed Ed stupidly retrieved an already empty can, Ed then explains to Dexter that the can wasn't empty when he first found it just as the implosions started happening.
- Overly Long Gag: BLOOBITY BLOOBITY BLOOBITY BLOOBITY, BLOOBITY BLOOBITY BLOOBITY BLOOBITY, BLOOBITY BLOOBITY BLOOBITY BLOOBITY, BLOOBITY BLOOBITY...
- Pop Star Composer: The movie score was composed by the fantastic Stewart Copeland, drummer for The Police. The score contains numerous moments of guitar shredding, heavy rock riffs, synthesizers, and R&B vocal samples.
- Also, the movie has the song "Roxanne" in it, which was a Police song.
- Race Against the Clock: Dexter, Ed, and Otis racing to get to Good Burger before anyone eats the poisoned sauce after escaping the mental hospital.
- Rule of Funny: The reason behind a number of things.
- Running Gag: Dexter's teacher's property keeps getting smashed, crashed, and run over. All mostly because of Dexter and Ed.
- Spit Take: Variation. During the double date at the mini golf, Roxanne tries to seduce Ed into revealing the secret recipe. Dexter, who was within earshot, nearly chokes on his drink upon hearing this, clearly realizing she's trying to pry information out of him.
- See You in Hell: "Okay! Seeya there!"
- Serious Business: "From now on, your life... is Mondo Burger. You can forget about your friends, you can forget about your family. Because Kurt is now both your mother and your father."
- Which leads to a wonderful Getting Crap Past the Radar line:
Dexter: Kurt must look awfully strange naked. |
- Skewed Priorities: Dexter's upset because he has to get a summer job? Dude, you're lucky you didn't go to prison for driving without a license!
- Smug Snake: Kurt, again.
- Straight Man: Dexter
- Third Person Person/Who's on First?: Kurt
Ed: Who's Kurt? |
- Timmy in a Well: A Subversion with a dog running up to Ed, who reads his barking as "A bunch of clowns are stranded on the highway with a broken radiator". Dexter tells him not to be stupid and that the dog's just hungry. At the end of the scene, Gilligan Cut to a bunch of clowns, standing by a broken car, wondering where the dog went.
- Too Dumb to Fool: The efforts of the Honey Trap to get the secret sauce from Ed fail because Ed doesn't realize he's being seduced. There's also the below trope.
- We Can Rule Together: Kurt attempts to get Ed to work for him by promising a higher salary. His stupidity prevents him from taking the offer.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: Dexter and Ed dress up as women in order to sneak into Mondo Burger.
- Ed took it too far by wearing a corset and stockings.