Seth MacFarlane Says ‘Ted’ Was Pitched as an Animated Show

January 6, 2024 @ 9:00 AM

Seth MacFarlane pitched “Ted” as a family-focused animated collection long prior to the personality headlined 2 high-grossing, R-rated movies. Currently, the personality lastly landed his very own television task, a live-action funny for Peacock that locates the bear as coarse as ever before.

The “Family Guy” designer, that established and voices the titular teddy bear, initially thought of the idea in the 1990s, throughout a controversial time in his period as an animator at Hanna-Barbera Productions, which came to be Anime Network Studios.

“There was a period during the Time Warner-Turner merger during which the company really had no idea what to do with its creative staff. We were all just sitting around, the whole place was in chaos. They didn’t want to fire us all because then they wouldn’t have any artists or writers when they did get underway again,” MacFarlane informed TheWrap. “So all we really had to do was pitch an animated show once a week to our bosses. Ted was originally one of these ideas.”

Comparable to its present model, the show concentrated on a teddy bear that revived after a young child wanted on a celebrity. In the initial pitch, that young boy would certainly take place to be wed and end up being a daddy, with the bear basically holding on as a “leech on the family,” according to MacFarlane.

“I never did anything with it. And then when it came time for me to do my first movie, it seemed like an idea that had some legs,” he stated. “And since it was a movie instead of a TV show and an ongoing group of characters, it seemed like telling a love story from start to finish and using that framework was maybe a better way to go. So the dad became a single guy trying to get his relationship back together.”

The very first “Ted” movie was launched in 2012, starring MacFarlane, Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis. It would certainly take place to earn $549.4 million at package workplace worldwide off of a $50 million budget plan. In 2015, MacFarlane and Wahlberg returned for “Ted 2,” which brought in $216.7 million globally on a spending plan of $68 million.

9 years later on, the bear will lastly strike the tv with the Peacock collection, an innovator to the movies established in 1993 that complies with Ted’s journeys in Framingham, Mass., together with a 16-year-old variation of his buddy John Bennett (Max Burkholder taking control of the duty from Wahlberg), John’s moms and dads Matty and Susan (Scott Grimes and Alanna Ubach) and relative Blaire (Giorgia Whigham).

“1993 is maybe a little bit later than when I was in high school and when my coshowrunners [Paul Corrigan and Brad Walsh] were in high school, but not by much,” MacFarlane stated. “To return and explore a great deal of those memories most of us had as a number of beta men and take a look at those firsts, and plug Ted in there and see them via his eyes was type of amusing and an pleasurable procedure.

“And dear God, to be able to write something where there’s no f—king cell phones is great,” he included.

MacFarlane, Corrigan and Walsh created and exec generated the collection and offer as coshowrunners, while MacFarlane likewise guides. Various other exec manufacturers consist of Fuzzy Door Productions’ Erica Huggins, Alana Kleiman, Jason Clark and Aimee Carlson. Unclear Door, MRC and UCP, a department of Universal Workshop Team, offer as manufacturers.

“Ted” premieres Thursday, Jan. 11, on Peacock.