The Big Picture

In the new Ted series, viewers are taken back to John and Ted’s high school years in 1993, where they navigate the highs and lows of being teenagers. Seth MacFarlane pushes the boundaries of hard comedy in Ted, exploring the edge of the genre without going too far. MacFarlane isn’t concerned about offending viewers because animated characters like Ted and Peter Griffin don’t exist, and viewers are savvy enough to understand that TV is a group effort.

Twelve years ago, writer-director Seth MacFarlane introduced audiences to Ted in his first-ever feature. The R-rated buddy comedy starred Mark Wahlberg as John Bennett, whose childhood best friend is a talking teddy bear (voiced by MacFarlane) he wished to life on a star. Though it sounds like the premise of a Disney movie, Ted was less cuddly plushie, and more like exactly what you’d expect from the creator behind American Dad! and Family Guy.

In his new Peacock series, Ted, MacFarlane takes viewers back to the formative high school years of John (Max Burkholder) and Ted, in 1993, when, as the tagline reads, everything went wrong. Rather than hang around the house causing havoc, John’s family makes Ted attend high school with John, where the duo discovers the highs and lows of being a teenager. The show also stars Alanna Ubach, Scott Grimes, and Giorgia Whigham as John’s family.

Before the extended first episode premieres on January 11, Collider’s Steve Weintraub spoke with MacFarlane about continuing the Ted franchise as a series. Check out the video above or the full interview transcript below where MacFarlane talks about pushing the limits of hard comedy, why he isn’t concerned about offending viewers, and whether we’ll be seeing Mark Wahlberg as a guest appearance on the show. The creator also teases more of his sci-fi comedy series, The Orville, what he’s up to in 2024, and shares an update on The Naked Gun reboot with Liam Neeson. For even more on Ted the show, check out Collider’s interview with writer Paul Corrigan and writer and executive producer Brad Walsh further down the page.

COLLIDER: I have a million questions for you, and I wanna say thank you so much for making me laugh with the Ted show, but you know I’m a huge fan of The Orville and I need to ask you, is it over? Could there be more? Could there be, like, a TV movie? What can fans hope for?

SETH MACFARLANE: How do I answer this question? It is not officially over yet, no.

Okay, thank you. That’s better than you telling me it’s all done.

Related Why ‘The Orville’ Is More Than a Star Trek Homage The realistic, relatable interpersonal relationships make ‘The Orville’ something special in the sci-fi genre.

One of the things that I really love about your work, and especially it’s true in Ted, is that everyone seems to be so timid to rock the boat with a joke. One of the things about Ted is he says and does things on the series that I would say are pushing the boundaries, or inappropriate. Can you talk about doing that with the show, and maybe why is everyone so nervous about making jokes that might offend people?

MACFARLANE: Well, I think there’s two reasons, one that’s very specific to Ted and to shows like Family Guy. You’re right, there’s an absence of flat-out hard comedy these days, a comedy that’s just out to get laughs, that’s out to explore the boundaries of the genre and see if there’s an edge that takes it too far, and it’s kind of fun to find where that edge is and make sure you don’t go past it, but to go right up to the rim. I think in many cases, where I have a little bit more of a safety net, is that if you’re a stand-up comic, or if you are somebody who is the face of their show every week, then if you screw up, and if you have a joke that goes too far for people, you’re gonna be the one who gets attacked. With Family Guy and with Ted, first of all, these are animated characters — Ted does not exist, Peter Griffin doesn’t exist. You can’t tweet at him. And in terms of the show, people are smart enough to know it’s a lot of people that have to get together and decide what goes on the air. Television is very much a group effort, and people are savvy at this point. They know that. And so, for me, it kind of protects me in a way that maybe gives me a little bit of an unfair advantage, because these are animated characters. But I don’t know. That’s just one theory.

I think people are a lot more able to distinguish comedy from commentary than we give them credit for. I think a lot of the angriest among us are amplified for the sake of clickbait, and I don’t think the actual audiences are quite as representative of that kind of noise as we might be led to believe. Look, you do screenings, you have table reads, you do test these jokes out to some degree, and then there are things that get a gasp at the table read that don’t go in the show. There are things that get a laugh, but you know you’re right on the edge, but people are still laughing so you give them their shot. But it is a little different than if I were up there with a microphone doing stand-up, and I made a joke, and I’m the face of it, and I’m the writer, and I’m all alone. So here, it’s a group effort. There is safety in numbers.

Image via Peacock

I was sitting in a hospitality room yesterday watching episodes and I was laughing out loud where people were looking at me. It was just nice to have jokes in a show that pushed a little bit and were not just safe.

MACFARLANE: Yeah, I think we need that right now.

100%, sir. Is there a joke, or is there a scene in one of the episodes, that you’re like, “Is this too far?” Is there something that even you said, “Maybe this is a little too much?”

MACFARLANE: I mean, it’s tough. I don’t get mad when I see things that cross the line in fiction. When I read the news, and I see anything with the phrase “Texas Supreme Court,” then, I get pissed. Then, I get angry. But when I watch something that is fiction, written by writers for the most part, I make that distinction, so it doesn’t rile me up. So, I don’t know. There’s nothing that I can think of for me in this show that goes over the line comedically.

I was gonna say, when I was watching the episode yesterday there was something about Vietnam, a joke, and I was like, “Oh, this is going.” [Laughs]

Is Mark Wahlberg Going to Be in the ‘Ted’ Series?
Image via Universal

So, if you get to make a second season, is it possible to do a modern story with Wahlberg in an episode that then flashes back to the Ted series? Did you even think about doing something like that?

MACFARLANE: Anything is possible. The challenge with Wahlberg is he’s very busy. He’s always working on a movie, or two or three, and to get him for a television series, even for something like Ted, the time commitment is oftentimes more than his schedule will permit. So, if he were to be involved, it would have to be in a capacity similar to what you’ve just described. It hasn’t been discussed yet, but anything is possible.

One of the things I read is that you guys discussed doing this as a multi-cam show, and I was thinking, could that have been like an Alf situation? Could you talk about the iterations and how you got to what people are seeing?

MACFARLANE: I still am intrigued by that idea. The only reason I didn’t do it was that they wanted this show as fast as they could get it. I didn’t want to go into a situation where I was doing a multi-cam show with an audience and a CGI character where I didn’t have time for R&D, for research and development, to see if this was even possible. The reason that it intrigued me is that one of my favorite pieces of Ted footage is his appearance on Kimmel in 2012. Film/video nerds will know what I’m talking about; it was that video 30/60 frames a second look, as opposed to film, which gave him an immediacy that he maybe didn’t have at 24 frames a second. Same thing when he and Mark were at the Oscars, he just feels maybe just a little bit more real, and I wanted to do something like that. The issue is, you gotta shoot those things fast. You’ve got an audience there waiting.

It still intrigues me. It’s something that I still would like to try at some point. I mean, the idea of a CGI character there waiting for an audience to finish their laughter before he says the next joke the way a live actor has to do it is, again, it’s yet another level of reality. It’s still kind of in the back of my mind, but we would need the proper amount of time to really see if it can be done because it could also be a disaster.

Oh, 100%. It could be terrible, but it could be amazing.

What’s the Status of ‘The Naked Gun’ With Liam Neeson?
Image via Paramount Pictures

So, last time I spoke to Liam Neeson, he mentioned The Naked Gun to me, and I’m gonna have to bring up Naked Gun with you because he seemed excited. What’s the status of that?

MACFARLANE: It’s being worked on as we speak. Akiva Schaffer, who’s written the draft with his team, has done a hell of a job, and it is in development. So, it is still very much alive.

Awesome to hear. We are now almost in 2024. As a fan of your work, I am curious what you’re thinking about doing next year.

MACFARLANE: You know, I don’t know yet. I think by January I’m gonna have a clearer idea. This show was such an undertaking. It was so much work to essentially do what we did in the films with the same quality for television that I’m gonna exhale a little bit over the month of December. Then, when we get into January, I’ll be kind of revved up and ready to go again. So, I’m not sure. There are a few things that are on the table — a television project and a couple of film projects, and I haven’t decided what’s next.

“What Have We Gotten Ourselves Into?” ‘Ted’ Series Co-Writer & EP Talk Laugh-Out-Loud Comedy

Writer Paul Corrigan and Ted series writer and executive producer, Brad Walsh talk about why the humor in their new Peacock series is such a relief. They talk about taking chances, but also balancing the boundary-pushing comedy with a family at the heart of each of the seven episodes. They discuss almost doing Ted as a multi-cam show, the technical difficulties of pulling that off in front of a live audience, how they chose the jokes and storylines to tell in Season 1, and the challenges of filming with an animated main character. You can check out the video above for all this and more.

Ted the series premieres on Peacock on January 11.