‘Good Burger’: How Kel Mitchell Created His Iconic Character on the Set of Beloved ’90s Sketch Comedy Show ‘All That’
Good Burger was a huge hit in the ’90s, full of side-splitting jokes from a young Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell. Did you know that the concept for the characters in the movie was created on the kids’ comedy sketch show All That?
How ‘Good Burger’ came out of sketch show ‘All That’
All That launched in 1994 and ran until 2005, boasting cast members like Amanda Bynes, Nick Cannon, Jamie Lynn Spears, Thompson, and Mitchell. The show was essentially a children’s version of Saturday Night Live, and it went on to be a big success, spawning now-famous skits that people still remember today.
One of the most famous sketches was “Good Burger,” a skit that followed Thompson and Mitchell’s characters: two employees at a fast food restaurant called Good Burger. While the skit’s premise was created on All That, Mitchell’s character, Ed, was in the works long before then.
Mitchell recently talked to Pop Culture about the cult classic movie as it celebrates its 25th anniversary, and he shared some behind-the-scenes details about how it all came together.
How Kel Mitchell developed the character of Ed
“Here’s what’s crazy,” the actor explained.
“So I did the Ed voice in the audition. And it was just my take on a Valley kid. You know what I mean? Being from the south side of Chicago. So, me and my boys would do it all the time. We’re like, ‘Whoa, dude! Yeah. Cool!’ And so, I did it in the room and then the writers took that and made this world. But first, to all of our fans, the first time Ed was ever shown was as a pizza guy. Right? And it was in a sketch called ‘Dream Remote.’ And Josh [Server, fellow All That cast member] could like forward, hit. He wanted something, he’ll hit the remote and it happened really quickly. And so, he wanted pizza really quickly. So, he pressed the fast forward. Pizza guy that comes to the door goes, ‘Well, dude, here’s your pizza.’ Only line in that sketch.”
Mitchell continued,
“And then they said, ‘Yo! We got to take this and create a whole world with this voice,’ and they created Good Burger. And I remember, because I come from theater, I felt like it needed to have like, where did he come from? How does he walk? And I kept doing this, ‘Well, yeah, dude.’ And I was like, ‘He needs some hair to bob a little bit.’ And I went into the makeup hair room and I saw this Milli Vanilli-like wig and I threw that on and ed was born, man. It was like, he was born. And it just looked so cool. And shout out to the producers for allowing me to do that. It just said, ‘Hey, Kip. Yeah, do it. Yeah. Let’s rock the wig! Let’s rock the wig!'”
Kel Mitchell: ‘It’s so cool that people still love it to this day’
The actor also talked about what it’s like to see new generations of kids discover and fall in love with Good Burger.
“[It] absolutely does not feel like 25 years,” Mitchell said of the anniversary.
“But, it is and it’s so cool that people still love it to this day. I love the fact that kids that are super, super young, 5 years old, are having Good Burger-themed birthday parties. It’s so cool that family members, like kids that watched it in the ’90s, are now parents. And they can enjoy this movie with their kids. That’s so cool, man. So cool.”
Good Burger is one of the iconic kids’ movies of the 90s, and fans of the movies — and sketch — love getting to know more about how it all came to be.
