For years Nickelodeon's sketch comedy show "All That" (a regular on the Network's SNICK and in daytime schedules) has been the children's equivalent of NBC's "Saturday Night Live." Build stars up when they're young, and hopefully watch the audience that grew up with them follow along into other spin-off TV shows or even movies. Amanda Bynes, star of Warner's "What A Girl Wants," got her start on "All That" before landing her own children's variety series (also on Nickelodeon). Ditto for Kel Mitchell and Keenan Thompson, whose 'Keenan & Kel Show' gave the teenage African American comedians even wider range to do the sort of stuff parents frown upon or don't get, but which little children seem to enjoy laughing at. One of the duo's most memorable sketches from "All That" (what 'Mango' is to Chris Katan, or 'Wayne's World' to Mike Myers) had Kel acting as a dim-witted fast-food counter employee that would always conclude a tirade of innocuous comments with the phrase
'Can I Take Your Order?'.
It proved to be such a popular recurring sketch that, in 1997, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies turned it into a theatrical movie (their second after 1996's "Harriet the Spy"). BTW, and before we continue, please don't ask me how I know all these things, OK? Back then I was a faithful viewer of "The Secret World of Alex Mack," so some of the happenings on the other Nickelodeon shows must have rubbed off on me with promos, commercials and stuff. I've never been actually to sit through an entire episode of "All That," "The Amanda Show" or "The Keenan & Kel Show." I hadn't seen too many episodes of "The Adventures of Pete & Pete" either when I saw "Harriet the Spy" though, and I ended up loving that flick on DVD (read our review elsewhere on this site).
Not so "Good Burger" I'm afraid. The aforementioned "SNL" show has proven that not every comedy sketch can be stretched into a 90 min. comedy, and this "All That" sketch can't even entertain for the first 15 min. in which it sets up its premise and characters. In a nutshell: a high-tech burger joint, Mondo Burger, is threatening to put the tiny Good Burger diner out of business. That would be bad news for Ed (Mitchell), Dexter (Thompson), Otis ("Barney Miller's" Abe Vigoda), Deedee (Ginny Schreiber) and everyone else that depends on the diner for either employment or their home-cooked, good-folk approved meal. The guys running the Mondo Burger joint are so decked in badness (purple spandex suits, evil noises when the burger patties roll down a band, etc.) that of course Keenan and Kel must win at the end of the day and keep the poor lil' diner from succumbing to evil big business. Mmphh, high-tech facilities that shut down small business are evil? I wonder when Nickelodeon will tackle Walmart, or stop recycling plots for its movies. The plot of "Good Burger" is almost the same as last year's "Hey Arnold! The Movie" picture!
Sorry, but director Brian Robbins (creator of this and other terrible shows on Nickelodeon, including the so-bad-it-defies-contempt "Cousin' Skeeter") and his team of writers (all with Nickelodeon TV background) don't come up with a single moment in "Good Burger" that isn't contrived, dead on arrival or just plain unfunny (IMO). The only fun for me was watching the handful of celebrities and behind-the-scenes personnel that agreed to be in this mess, no doubt on the advice of managers that thought it'd be great to see their clients in a Nickelodeon movie. Shaquille O'Neal munches on one of Kel's burgers. Robert Whul (HBO's "Arli$$," another Brian Robbins TV property) gets mad at the counter. Funkmeister George Clinton dances like crazy. Even Dan Schneider (the Lorne Michaels of sketch comedy shows on Nickelodeon) sticks his head a couple of times!
You can actually sense your own IQ dropping dramatically as "Good Burger's" 95 minutes of running time slowly plod along.
The Disc:
Like "Harriet the Spy," Paramount dumps "Good Burger" into the DVD market with only its good digital looks and sounds to carry it. Fans of the movie (all 32 of you that actually paid money to go see it in '97) will be glad to know the Widescreen Anamorphic (1:85:1) Video Transfer is pristine, colorful, undamaged and clean (save for an odd spec of dirt here and there). Colors are vibrant and alive, as is the surprisingly good English Dolby Digital 5.1 & 2.0 Surround and French Stereo Surround Audio Tracks that bring every lame joke and over-the-top sound effect into front channel prominence. Rear speakers mostly take care of the music score, which is a surprisingly peppy mixture of sounds and instruments. No surprise to know that Stewart Copland (composer for the "Spyro the Dragon" videogame series) was responsible for this. 'Any other musical highlights in "Good Burger"' you ask? 'You gotta be kidding' I say! :-( English Subtitles are also included.
bottom line:
Childish and borderline retarded (even by Nickelodeon standards), "Good Burger" is like one of those awful one-note "Saturday Night Live" comedy sketches (Mary Catherine Gallagher's Superstar, It's Pat, etc.) that are stretched into feature-length film and way past the point of tolerance by most normal folks. DVD Picture and sound are OK, but there are no special features whatsoever (good!). Try to catch "All That" repeats on Nickelodeon to see Keenan and Kel perform the shortened version of "Good Burger," or you'll never believe that audiences actually laughed at s*** this moronic and stupid.
By - J.M. Vargas
