Sausage Party: Foodtopia

It’s solidly made, structured with care, talented actors forming an unbroken chain of great performances, and with enough underlying heft to make it that bit more than simply a first-class joke factory.

Sausage Party: Foodtopia manages to once more capture the silly-meets-scandalous approach of the movie, proving there’s still many laughs to be had for those who were amused by cutesy, cursing, libidinous food the first time around.

If Sausage Party was your type of humor, you'll love Foodtopia just as much if not more. This food is really cookin'.

There are obvious parallels to today’s bizarro political landscape and its annoying, blustery players, and the topicality of that adds spice to “Sausage Party: Foodtopia.” But more than anything, it’s the series’ oh-they-didn’t-just-go-there naughtiness, terrific vocal cast and ridiculous situations that make you laugh uncontrollably.

Not as full a meal as the original film, but almost as funny — and much filthier. If nothing else, it will put you off your food.

If comedy like this makes you cringe pleasantly, it’s worth digging into Foodtopia. If not, excuse yourself. Sausage Party’s sequel isn’t bland, but it leaves much to be desired in its wake.

“Sausage Party: Foodtopia” feels like a show kind of caught between a feature sequel and its potential as a TV series. Now that Frank, Brend, and Barry have returned and brought along a few new friends, it’s certainly possible that future series could find a better balance in the writing. And there’s just enough wit and sharp humor here to make that an enticing potential meal.

The series wobbles along the fine line between stupid and clever, falling — not by accident — to one side and then the other. You can’t call it tossed off — there is a lot of work that goes into making a cartoon — though much of the writing has the air of having been born in a smoky room in a fit of giggling.

While it’s not strictly boring and the low-budget animation seems to capture the same spirit as the film, nothing in Foodtopia is worth getting hungry over. It’s one of those shows that’s just there. It’s not too bad, nor is it anything good either.

Over eight episodes, this formula quickly wears thin. But to many, it’ll be worth the distraction. Dick jokes are an easy laugh — or a cheap one, depending on the eye of the beholder. And a show named for a dick joke has both in spades.

Hard-core fans of the Rogen/Goldberg house style (or aficionados of animated grotesquerie) will probably have a good time with Foodtopia, but more than a decade after the pair spun off from the Judd Apatow universe into their own endeavors, it’s worth asking whether they’ve started placing undue emphasis on branded raunch.

Escapism isn’t an option in “Foodtopia,” and given the surface-level nature of its satire, that doesn’t leave a lot of fun to be had. Instead of saying “I can’t believe this exists,” you’ll likely be wondering, “Why am I watching this?”

Foodtopia, developed by the same team minus Hill but adding Conrad Vernon, is quite a bit darker. And it’s also quite a bit less funny.

I’m prepared to say that there are between 5 and 10 good and clever minutes in Amazon’s new Sausage Party: Foodtopia as well, but it’s much harder to find redemptive value in 5 or 10 good and clever minutes stretched over eight half-hour episodes.