Where It Started
Good Burger began not as a film pitch or a book, but as a two-minute recurring sketch on All That, Nickelodeon's sketch comedy series that debuted in 1994. Kel Mitchell created and played Ed, a cheerful, dimwitted counter worker at the fictional Good Burger fast-food joint, whose catchphrase "Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger, can I take your order?" became one of the defining comic rhythms of 1990s kids television.
The sketch was simple and almost structurally perfect: Ed would mishear orders, offer absurd solutions, and radiate a sincere goodwill that made the joke work without cruelty. It ran for years on All That, popular enough that Nickelodeon Movies greenlit a feature film in 1997, pairing Mitchell with his All That co-star Kenan Thompson. That film, directed by Brian Robbins, expanded the world while keeping the same spirit: two slacker employees fending off a corporate fast-food competitor trying to buy them out.
For a long time that was the whole story. The film became a cult object on VHS and cable, the sketch faded with All That, and the franchise sat dormant for twenty-six years. Then in 2023, Paramount+ released Good Burger 2, reuniting Kenan and Kel with a sequel that positioned itself as a sincere continuation rather than an ironic nostalgia play.
Every Version of Good Burger
The sketch, the film, the sequel, and the TV home that started it all
Good Burger Through the Years
- 1994Ed debuts on All That (Nickelodeon sketch comedy) All That
- 1997Good Burger feature film released by Paramount/Nickelodeon Movies Good Burger
- 2005All That ends its original run; Good Burger sketches conclude
- 2019All That revival season airs on Nickelodeon All That
- 2023Good Burger 2 premieres on Paramount+ Good Burger 2
Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger, can I take your order?Ed, All That (1994)
If You Love Good Burger: Sketch Comedy That Became Something Bigger
TV comedy bits that outgrew their original format
If You Love Good Burger: Fast Food Follies and Corporate Underdogs
Stories about small fries holding out against big chains
If You Love Good Burger: Kenan and Kel's Nickelodeon Universe
The world they came from and what followed
The 1997 film is the definitive version, and it holds up better than it has any right to
The original Good Burger film should not be as good as it is. It was made quickly, on a modest budget, as a feature extension of a sketch that ran maybe two minutes at a time. What saves it is Mitchell's performance, which is genuinely committed and funny in a way that doesn't condescend to kids or wink at adults. The corporate villain plot is thin, but the film has a specific warmth and anarchic energy that most studio comedies lose in the packaging. It earned its cult.
Good Burger 2 is the underrated one: a sequel that remembered why the original worked
Good Burger 2 arrived twenty-six years later with almost no cultural momentum behind it, and made the smart choice to treat that gap honestly rather than pretend it hadn't happened. Kenan and Kel both look their age, the film acknowledges the passage of time, and it earns its sentimentality. Most legacy sequels this late in the game feel like audits. This one feels like a reunion that was worth having.
The All That revival (2019) is the wrong place to start if you care about the original sketches
The 2019 All That revival brought back several original cast members as mentors and updated the format for a new generation of kids. It is not cynically made. But the Good Burger material it carries feels obligatory rather than inspired, and watching it before the classic run is the wrong order. Start with seasons one through six of the original All That: that is where Ed lives.