In the summer of 2003, best friends Kevin Clarke and Wil Long, Seattle-based comedians, comic book artists and independent filmmakers, decided to make a movie together. Utilizing their Hi-8 Analog camcorder, one rather depressing looking hamburger and a budget of approximately negative-zero dollars, the duo created Hamburger Dad. Like many DIY, friend-staffed efforts, and with a goofy premise that could only generously be described as something you’d come up while high, it’s a roughly hewn work that was destined to be seen and distributed by few. But when Scott Miller, host of the YouTube show and podcast Strange Tapes Zine, discovered a copy of Hamburger Dad sitting in the local filmmaker’s section of Seattle’s prized Scarecrow Video, a cult favorite was reborn. As the internet continues to allow methods of democratizing avenues of distribution for hyper-independent, DIY cinema, it’s an apt time to look back at this 21-year-old curio, which is far more than the sum of its limited parts.
Inspired by The Metamorphosis, Hamburger Dad is a Kafkaesque fable about an All-American, working-class family man, Harold Davis (voiced by Clarke), who wakes up one day to discover he’s transformed into a hamburger. This unlikely predicament completely upends Harold’s life, causing him to quickly lose his job and his wife and throwing him into an existential crisis. With nowhere else to turn, Harold seeks to repair his relationship with his estranged and wayward son, Jeff (Christopher Miller), and sets off on a road trip to help him reunite with his crush, Cassie (Pascale Tremoulet). The journey is beset with issues related to the pair’s rocky relationship, but Harold begins to turn a new leaf – he may not have been much of a father, but maybe, just maybe, he can learn to be a great hamburger dad. At an impressive 51 minutes (considering the premise), Hamburger Dad may not be much to look at, but it’s surprisingly witty and thematically involved effort that more than justifies it’s near-feature-length runtime.
If the hamburger itself – a rather unpleasant-looking lump of meat – is any indication, parts of Clarke and Long’s film leave something to be desired. Outside of Clarke’s humorously deadpan vocal performance, the acting ranges from barely functional to “friend next door” levels of bad, and the movie’s oddball ending wrecks a good deal of the movie’s emotional groundwork by veering full-tilt into zany territory. But these critiques are only relevant because Hamburger Dad feels, against all odds, like an actual movie. Clarke and Long repeatedly find ways to complicate their one-joke premise, adding in various twists and that deepen the film’s world. For instance, when Harold and Jeff arrive at Cassie’s house, they find out that Cassie’s dad has also transformed into food, though in his case, a much bougier plate of lobster with a glass of red wine. “Perhaps your problems existed before your metamorphosis,” the pompous lobster tells Harold in a vaguely British accent, complementing a story that’s ultimately about taking responsibility, both as a father, but also as a son who learns to take charge of his life in the face of irrevocable change.
Hamburger Dad is also terrifically funny, in ways both intended and possibly unintended. As a hamburger, Harold inexplicably has the ability to use the phone, take the bus, traverse various surfaces, operate a TV and consume liquids, though he’s also unable to defend himself if, say, someone wanted to eat him (he apparently has the ability to regenerate flesh, as seen after one of Jeff’s drunk friends takes a bite out of him). In one scene, Jeff must rescue Harold after he falls into a toilet and can’t get out, and in another, he gets flattened in a cinema seat. The screenplay is humorously blunt. When his wife leaves him, Harold asks, “Why? Is it because I’m a hamburger?” Later, when asked about losing his job: “Do you know what makes it suck worse, Jeffrey? Being a hamburger.” And again, later on: “Dude, you’re a hamburger,” “Really, Einstein?” In general, people seem to have an easy time accepting that Harold is a talking hamburger, to the point where it’s not exactly clear what the rules of this world are. But there’s some more articulately written jokes too, as when Harold sneaks up on Jeff and Cassie making out (“I move silently, like the wind”), or when he and Jeff play father-and-son catch, but the former is almost immediately crushed by the ball. It would’ve been easy – even understandable – for Clarke and Long to fall back on goofing around with friends, but the obvious effort they’ve put into the running gags, shot composition and even elements of the plot, is what makes this father-son movie both charming and impressive.
Playing at the Spectacle Theater in New York City for four days in June 2024, Hamburger Dad was preceded by three short films: Wade, Kevin’s Car and Taco: A Love Story. Wade is a documentary about the duo’s friend, Wade Atkinson, a bike messenger who was disfigured after his bike was struck by an SUV. Kevin’s Car is a lighter documentary about Clarke’s car, a bedraggled, 20-year-old Ford Escort. Taco: A Love Story is the most similar to Hamburger Dad, a cyclical story of a man (Clarke) who falls in love with and has a torrid romantic affair with a taco. What each of these shorts convey is the earnestness of Clarke and Long’s cinematic pursuits. Their technical resources may be slim, but the stories they’re telling have an authentic sense of heart and soul. Making any movie is hard, but the process can also be ridiculously fun. Each movie is also the story of those who made it, at the precise moment in time in which it was made. Hamburger Dad recalls that pure, unadulterated spirit of creative impulse, one that any filmmaker can identify with from the moment they picked up a camera for the first time and went out to shoot something with their friends. Movies like this might be rare, but Hamburger Dad is well done.
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