An animated trailblazer (the first computer-animated movie rated R by the MPAA) gets a sequel series in all-star comedy Sausage Party: Foodtopia. If you thought there was nowhere left for this OTT comedy to go, oh dear Lord, would you be wrong, reports Steve Newall.
Sausage Party: Foodtopia - Season 1
“Did we not topple their whole society in a comically short period of time?” a character asks in Prime Video’s new series. “And did we or did we not tear down all stigmas around both sucking and fucking?”
These are rhetorical questions, dear reader. You’re in Foodtopia, now—a new society rising from the ruins of human civilisation. Yes, somehow Food has overthrown us, in a continuation of 2016’s Sausage Party, which parodied Disney and Pixar pics with its anthropomorphised supermarket goods. Utterly unsafe for school holiday audiences, the film reveled in being utterly filthy, and found no food pun or taboo moment it couldn’t accommodate.
When the film premiered at SXSW eight years ago, Seth Rogen explained the origins of the R-rated animated pic, one that he’d been trying to get made for eight years: “People project emotions on things around them—onto their toys, onto their cars, onto their pets. That’s what Pixar has done for the last 20 years. We thought what would it be like if our food had feelings. We very quickly realised that would be fucked up, because we eat it.”
Rogen, who had story, producing and starring credits on Sausage Party, is back here—and so are the rest of the creative team who shared the responsibility for some of the most questionable animated sequences to ever defile multiplexes. With Evan Goldberg, Conrad Vernon, Kyle Hunter and Ariel Shaffir, at his side, Seth Rogen has dreamed up a further eight episodes of disturbingly dirty foodstuff frolics.
Sausage Party: Foodtopia follows the surviving heroes of the 2016 uprising as they try to build a post-human society, but Food knows nothing of reality outside the grocery store—including challenging factors like rain, heat, or birds. And, mirroring human life, for every sensible solution they come up with to solve a societal problem—like setting up policing to enforce order—they run into unexpected consequences (corruption, prejudice).
A once humble sausage, Frank (Rogen) was the one who opened Food’s eyes to the reality of their situation in Sausage Party. Now, free to be with his true love Brenda (a bun, voiced by Oscar nominee Kirsten Wiig), the pair try to steer their fledging society into something that will last—and is fair.
But their team from the film is fractured. The neurotic Sammy Bagel Jr. (voiced by Oscar nominee Edward Norton—doing his best Woody Allen) is plagued by traumatic memories of his lover’s death, and buries these feelings in a time-honoured tradition… chasing the trappings of fame as a stand-up comic.
Meanwhile, another sausage, Barry (Tony nominee Michael Cera) overcame being bullied for his misshapen casing in the film, but now suffers from a lack of meaning after Food’s violent revolution. He’s hungry… for action, which will put him at odds with his friends’ more gentle approach—especially when it relies on taking advice from one of the few remaining humans.
Thanks to the effects of hallucinogenic bath salts discovered previously, the citizens of Foodtopia know that ingesting the substance allows humans to ‘see’ Food in its true form: walking, talking, and killing said humans if they’re not careful. (Hey, you would too, if you discovered you were being raised to be brutally dismembered, and consumed by uncaring giants.)
One of the conflicts that emerges early in Foodtopia is what to do with Jack (Emmy nominee Will Forte), a human whose advice about the world proves invaluable to Food’s survival. Barry ain’t so sure about Jack’s presence, preferring to do what he’s grown to do best: kill ’em all.
More trouble comes from another new character, Julius the orange, voiced by Emmy winner Sam Richardson. He’s out to exploit the weaknesses in the new society, accumulating power and wealth, in part by pioneering the invention of transactable currency (aka the teeth of dead humans). And yeah, he’s a little bit Trump-y.
After the events of Sausage Party, which culminated in food fighting back against the humans who consume it (and celebrated their victory with a prolonged anything-goes orgy), you could be forgiven for thinking there was nowhere left for this to go.
But oh dear Lord, would you be wrong.
I lost count but hopefully someone on the internet will tally how many painful food puns are rolled out—it must be in the mid-hundreds, and they are served up… with relish (sorry/not sorry). And if you thought Sausage Party’s ‘climax’ was full on, just wait for the episode preceded by this warning:
“We are proud to announce that this episode contains a scene so graphic that Amazon asked that we issue a warning. This is that warning. You have been warned!”
Warned, yes. But mentally prepared? Oh hell, no. I won’t spoil what’s coming, but that’s partly because I would immediately be flagged by the IT department and summarily sacked for typing it…
Older viewers may remember family-friendly show and book series The Munch Bunch—Foodtopia is so, so far away from that. If anyone took the same approach to Richard Scarry’s lovable animals, for instance, it’d resemble Hieronymous Bosch via the Marquis de Sade at a barbecue.
Yum, a barbecue (sorry, any sausies who may be reading—please don’t revolt and kill us all).
