I’m not gonna lie – I have a Good Burger tattoo on my left thigh. Between the ages of seven and nine, I watched Good Burger every night before I fell asleep — seriously, the VHS was never ejected from my built-in VCR.
Good Burger is about a doofus named Ed (Kel Mitchell) who works at a subpar fast food joint called, you guessed it, Good Burger. While rollerblading to work, Ed makes a careless decision which causes Dexter (Kenan Thompson) to crash his mother’s car into his teacher’s (Sinbad). Now Dexter owes his teacher a bunch of money and, boohoo, has to get a summer job. After being rejected from Mondo Burger, our namesake’s ridiculous rising competition, he ends up working at Good Burger without realizing that Ed is the buffoon who made him crash his mama’s car.
Just as Ed reveals his super secret sauce that could help Good Burger compete with Mondo Burger sales, Dexter remembers Ed’s rollerblading maneuver that cost him his summer. In turn, Dexter screws Ed over, which is totally sad because Ed is just a big, loveable idiot who never meant any harm.
Things worth mentioning:
In the first thirty minutes of the movie, Ed flies with fast food, showers in his work uniform, and dunks a baby through a basketball hoop. And Sinbad is in it! And Shaq! SHAQ! Other highlights include a mental hospital dance number featuring George Clinton and Linda Cardellini as patients, excellent crossdressing by Kenan and Kel, and OH YEAH, Carmen Electra gets knocked out by a golf ball shot straight at her forehead.
Unfortunately, things have changed between the duo since Good Burger’s release in 1997. Kenan and Kel were pinned against each other in SNL auditions and Kenan got the part. According to Kel, Kenan won't talk to him anymore. Depressing, I know.
What’s Kel up to, you ask? Well, he’s made some weird religious videos, thrown orange soda parties, and provided the voice for a talking dog named T-Bone on Clifford the Big Red Dog. Pretty, uh, radical stuff.
Point is, Kenan and Kel were the duo who made the coolest movie of my dorky childhood. While haters do their hating, I will stand tall and proud beside my beloved Good Burger.