Foods have feelings too. That’s the revelation in Sausage Party, the new animated, R-rated romp fest based on a story by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Jonah Hill. But Sony took that concept to the next level in a promotional stunt shot for the film in a C-Town grocery store in Long Island City, New York.

While based in a hidden control room and monitoring the terrain with monitors, Rogen puppeteered animatronic food items to surprise customers and “teach” New Yorkers a lesson about food with tons and tons of F bombs — just like in the movie.

Watch the prank below.


To pull this off, Sony enlisted the aid of Thinkmodo, the New York-based viral marketing creators behind some hilarious Internet stunts, like the “Telekinetic Coffee Shop” for Carrie, the haunted psychic parlor for Ouija, and the demon baby stunt for Devil’s Due. According to them, the fake food was made with “highly realistic latex exteriors, internal batteries, hidden speakers, RF receivers for remote control operation, and multiple servos to move the eyes and mouth.”

Rogen, who was also able to maneuver the food with a joystick, was backed up by his writing team, who came in handy for some customer conversations that lasted more than 10 minutes.

Sausage Party, directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon, follows a group of anthropomorphic grocery store items as they are purchased and brought to a shopper’s home to learn the brutal reality of what happens to food in a kitchen. The voice cast is filled out with a batch of new and recurring Rogen collaborators, including James Franco, Michael Cera, Bill Hader, Salma Hayek, Nick Kroll, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Paul Rudd, Kristen Wiig, and Hill.

The film hits theaters this weekend. See more of how the stunt was made in the behind-the-scenes images below.

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Image via Thinkmodo

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Image via Thinkmodo
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Image via Thinkmodo
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Image via Thinkmodo
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Image via Thinkmodo

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Image via Thinkmodo
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Image via Thinkmodo