The Big Picture

Prime Video’s
Sausage Party: Foodtopia
picks up where the film left off, exploring the food’s lives after their victory against humans.
The show critiques societal issues like class division and greed, with political undertones but not a preachy message.
The humor remains raunchy and gut-busting, with fresh twists and memorable performances from the voice cast.

2016 gave us one of the weirdest, yet funniest movies you’ll ever see with the release of Sausage Party. Although it might have been animated and about talking food, this isn’t Toy Story. With mass food murder, a plethora of adult-oriented humor (the villain was a talking douche after all), and more orgies than Caligula, Sausage Party definitely isn’t for children. Starring the likes of Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Michael Cera, and Edward Norton, along with a dozen more big names, this comedy is filled with laughs, while still going dark, as food, who now know what happens to them when they leave the grocery store shelf, decide to fight back.

Eight years later, Sausage Party is back — not as a sequel feature film, but an eight-episode series from Prime Video called Sausage Party: Foodtopia. A streaming series instead of a movie on the big screen might seem like a step backward, but with all of the voice cast returning, the longer runtime allows for a story with a wider scope. The perverted humor we expect is still there (including one scene that required a warning for its shocking images — more on that later), but beyond that is a message surprisingly effective for our times.

What Is ‘Sausage Party: Foodtopia’ About?
Sausage Party: Foodtopia isn’t a TV spin-off or a story about a different group of food, but instead picks up with the same characters right where the film ended. In Sausage Party, the finale has the food fighting back against the humans in the grocery store, slaughtering them left and right in an all-out war (forget about the scene after, where they learn that they’re cartoon characters). Foodtopia begins right after that war, as the food celebrate their win with yet another orgy and are now going outside into the world beyond the grocery store walls.

This isn’t a happy ending or a happy new beginning, because now the food, completely out of their element, have to deal with the harsh realities of outside. They may have defeated the humans, but how do you fight back against that terrifying and inexplicable water that falls from the sky ceiling? Rain might not be a big deal for people, but it’s a death sentence if you’re made out of bread. And then there are the weird flying creatures that hunt the food. To us, they’re just crows, but for food, they’re bizarre monsters who can rip you apart. It’s enough to make you want to go back to the safety of your old life, no matter how bad it was.

Sausage Party: Foodtopia has a clever premise in that it looks at what happens after the happy ending. OK, you’ve been freed from your captors, and now you can do whatever you want, but then what? The food still need places to live, and they still have their own desires and greed, which results in a complete changeover of society. It’s up to Frank (Rogen), Brenda (Wiig), and others to save it before the food becomes just like the humans.

‘Sausage Party: Foodtopia’s Political Message Isn’t Preachy

It’s a joy to watch the food in Foodtopiatry to develop their own society and quickly make the same mistakes humanity does. There is a quick breakdown into separate classes, with some of the food taking the bigger stores for themselves and others forced to live in cardboard boxes in the alleyway. They then become fascinated by the teeth they pull from the dead humans scattered about and decide to use it as a bartering system. The more teeth you have, the more you can earn in exchange, and life becomes all about trying to collect more teeth. Sound familiar? With some food stealing teeth, a police department is set up as well — along with courts, jails, and an entire judicial system. (You can see where this is all headed.)

Related The Food Friends Go to War in First ‘Sausage Party: Foodtopia’ Images Seth Rogen and more return for the spinoff series to the 2016 animated comedy this July.

Amidst the chaos, a leader emerges, and it’s not Frank or Brenda, but an orange named Julius (Sam Richardson) — get it? — a self-centered fruit who desires power at any cost. This results in further collapse, with some food giving Julius teeth in exchange for what he can provide them while the poor continue to suffer. With Julius’ attitude and his orange skin, it’s not too difficult to see that he is meant to be a bit of a parody of a certain former U.S. President. If the concern is that Sausage Party: Foodtopia is going to be a show all about heavy-handed politics, your worries can be alleviated. While the series does go into deeper messages about the ills of society, it’s a wink to American politics and capitalism without being a preachy, soapbox message meant to convert you to a particular side. Foodtopia will definitely make you think, but above all, it’s still a comedy — one as sick, raunchy, and gut-bustingly hilarious as ever.

‘Sausage Party: Foodtopia’s Humor Hasn’t Gone Bad

Yes, Sausage Party: Foodtopia has more creatively chaotic scenes of food death. One moment, involving some eggs, is particularly over-the-top, and the sex jokes are abundant as well. Thankfully, Foodtopia, while familiar, isn’t content to simply rehash the same punchlines from the film. It’s what you know from before, but also fresh, with a lot of that coming from a human character voiced by Will Forte. The SNL alum might have played a much more serious character earlier this year in the Netflix series Bodkin, but here, he returns to the comedic genius that we’re used to. Forte’s character is captured as a prisoner of war, but since he’s able to explain the everyday occurrences that scare the food, he might be valuable in keeping around.

Rogen and Wiig are again the lead voice talents, but two others steal the show. Cera is hilarious as Barry, the deformed sausage who doesn’t let his diminutive size stop him from becoming a badass warrior. Then there’s Norton’s Sammy Bagel Jr. Although he may have started as more of an over-the-top Woody Allen impression, the character becomes the most interesting in Foodtopia, as he tries to overcome his grief from the battle with the humans by entertaining everyone any chance he gets. It results in him seeing just how far he’ll go for attention. Sammy gets many of the best lines, and it might sound crazy, but with Norton’s voice talents, it may be one of the best roles of the actor’s entire career (and the man has been nominated for three Oscars).

Sausage Party: Foodtopiaisn’t interested in playing it safe. We wouldn’t love it if it did. It’s still as demented as it was eight years ago, and maybe even more so. One episode actually starts with a disclaimer informing us that one scene is so shocking that Amazon wanted a warning included beforehand. That might sound like a cheap tactic to get you watching, but whatever scene of raunch or brutality you’re setting yourself up for, what you see is so, so much worse — in the best way possible. If Sausage Party was your type of humor, you’ll love Foodtopia just as much if not more. This food is really cookin’.

Sausage Party: Foodtopia (2024) Sausage Party: Foodtopia has all the raunchy humor from the movie wrapped up in a deeper message about society.ProsThe Prime Video sequel series has the same sick humor as the feature film.Edward Norton’s voice talents result in one of the best characters of his career.Foodtopia uses jokes and animation to tell a more serious story that doesn’t come across as preachy.

Sausage Party: Foodtopia is available to watch on Prime Video beginning on July 11 in the U.S.

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