Seth Rogen’s Sausage Party trailer opens as many animated movie trailers do.
JR JR’s “Gone” plays an upbeat melody as colorful animation brings a supermarket to life. A happy suburban mom chirps away her grocery list while perky food items including hot dogs, potatoes and lettuce heads rejoice from the grocery cart at their luck in being picked to leave the store. Their animated faces have comically big smiles and eyes that are especially cartoonish and happy.
Things begin to take a turn around the 30-second mark. An animated hot dog and an animated bun, looking like the cutest genital representations you have ever seen, rejoice in the fact that “the gods put [their] packages together.” The obvious sexual double entendre is almost overshadowed by the question: Is this trailer implying that foods believe in God and that this God is a human?
The foods reach the house and collectively cheer as they leave the confines of their packaging. For some reason, each hot dog is just hanging out on the counter out of the package, which isn’t really how anyone handles an entire package of hot dogs. I quickly remember that these hot dogs also have faces and that this is not a documentary.
The mother lifts an adorable potato over the sink; he cheers and proudly and declares to the other foods he is “the first to enter eternity.” This line gives more insight into the fascinating concept of this food religion. I can’t think about it too much before the potato is screaming bloody murder as the woman peels off his skin. The foods quickly realize that their heaven is actually a nightmarish hell where they will be eaten alive. Did I mention this is a comedy?
Sausage Party is actually the first R-rated CG animated movie, which is probably why the twist ending of the trailer is so shocking. Never before have cute animated characters been able to scream the “F” word and contemplate their existence within a world of dark comedy.
The animated film is stocked with an incredible cast of voices including Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Nick Kroll, Paul Rudd and Edward Norton.
The mimicry of children’s movies is explicit. Talking inanimate objects that just want to be loved by humans isn’t a far cry from anything we’ve seen in Toy Story. Taking such a familiar concept and twisting it so dramatically in a different direction is an interesting comedic choice, wherein the shock takes a second to settle before anything proves funny.
Sausage Party is obviously made for young adults, those who grew up watching a slew of famous Pixar and DreamWorks creations — people whose DVD shelves have occupied both Superbad and Finding Nemo at some point or another. To combine elements of both of these films is funny in the most Frankenstein way.
Sausage Party could very easily scar those of a much younger generation for life. The characters on the cover are worrisomely similar to the colorful ones in more recent animated children’s movies like Zootopia.
The film is a concept that seems like the brainchild of a man high out of his mind in a basement. Maybe that’s how Rogen developed the idea, and unlike many stoners with seemingly genius ponderings, he actually had the money to make it real.
