In 2016, Seth Rogen’s hit animated movie about anthropomorphic food, Sausage Party, raised eyebrows for its denouement, which featured an orgy between the edibles, a bit like The 120 Days of Sodom meets Supermarket Sweep. But beneath the film’s crude carapace lay a surprisingly clever, well-constructed script lampooning Pixar films and religion, as the randy bangers and lesbian taco shells dreamed of being selected by a god (customer) so they can ascend to heaven beyond the shop doors. When they find out the truth – that they’re destined to be eaten – they declare war on the humeys. The movie’s coda (spoiler alert!) found our heroes discovering they were cartoon characters voiced by Rogen, Michael Cera et al, then preparing to cross a portal to our dimension to confront their creators. It seemed to tease a meta, Who Framed Roger Rabbit-esque sequel.
That ending is retconned in Amazon’s dismal eight-part spin-off series, Sausage Party: Foodtopia, which wearingly ramps up the outrageousness without any of the original’s nutritional value. Anyway – sigh! – here we go: sentient sausage Frank (Rogen), hotdog bun Brenda (Kristen Wiig), war-loving weenie Barry (Cera) and friends have overthrown the humeys to become the dominant species on earth. The food-based wank-bank is updated at the start, where we see newcomer Orange Julius (Sam Richardson) get his juicy ass eaten in another gangbang involving a smorgasbord of sexual acts. Only this time, it lacks the novelty shock value of the original.
When unexpected rain massacres their society, they must rebuild with help from kidnapped humey Jack (Will Forte), whom they control by climbing inside his anus and pulling on his nut-sack like an X-rated Ratatouille. But can our gang maintain their foodtopian ideals or will they end up like the humeys they hate? This set-up ostensibly allows the series to satirise uncomfortable aspects of society including capitalism and class inequality, but instead the writers grab at low-hanging fruit. Quite literally, in the case of the Trump-like tyrant Orange Julius.
Developed by the original’s co-writers Kyle Hunter and Ariel Shaffir, the scripts inflict a deathless stream of puns on us. Episode three, revolving around a Burning Man-style festival, features acts including Celine Dijon, Pitta Ora and Megan Thee Scallion, plus The Talking Breads performing a carb-based ‘Burning Down The House’. By the time the show limps to a Law & Order: Special Victims Unit spoof starring ‘Iced Tea’, you sense they’re not trying any more.
But on it staggers undaunted! We also get an oeuf being told “You look beat, Eggatha!”, past-their-sell-by-date references to a holocaust-denying Melon Gibson and a sweet named Bill Werther’s singing ‘Just The Chew Of Us’. When we reach Duncan Donut, you’re double-checking the credits to make sure the script isn’t credited to ‘Yer Dad’. Worse, the likeable protagonists of the original have become gratingly annoying to the point that even Morrissey might chomp on these sausages to stop their turgid banter.
Despite there being none of the South Park-style near-the-knuckle gags of the original (such as Sammy Bagel Jr and Arabic Kareem Abdul Lavash bickering over who occupies the West Bank of the supermarket aisle), this series is still smugly convinced of its own boundary-pushing. Worse still, the ending leaves the franchise open to be continued. Honestly though? Put a fork in it, we’re done.
‘Sausage Party: Foodtopia’ is streaming on Prime Video from July 11