It’s confirmed: the ‘Ted’ prequel series will be as “R-rated” as the films.
As announced last year, the foul-mouthed teddy bear created and voiced by Seth MacFarlane (‘Family Guy,’ ‘The Orville’) will make his return in a Peacock prequel series. While no release date has been shared, we got some new details in a recent Collider interview featuring the always multi-faceted MacFarlane. (He will executive produce, write, direct and star.)
Here’s what we’ve known until now:
- Giorgia Whigham (‘13 Reasons Why’), Max Burkholder (‘Parenthood’), and Scott Grimes (‘The Orville’) are set to co-star.
- The series takes us back to 1993, just after Ted’s reign of fame has ended.
- Mark Wahlberg will no longer be a fixture in the ‘Ted’ franchise — Burkholder will play a younger, 16-year-old version of Ted’s best friend, John.
As for what we’ve learned from MacFarlane’s recent interview… it’s the ‘90s in the Boston suburbs, for starters. It takes place in the very locale where Ted and John are spending their formative years together. Teenage buddy comedy? Yes, please.
“Tonally we’re sticking pretty close to the first movie. I think people who’ve enjoyed the first movie and enjoyed that tone are going to be pretty happy with what we’re doing here. We’re going with what worked. But we’re at the same time, exploring some new ground and kind of building up a past for John and Ted that we hadn’t really delved into in the film.”
So you might be thinking: if the series will be anything like the first ‘Ted’ will it have the same pot smoking, dirty jokes, and heavy cursing? Pot is TBD — though with teenage Ted in the ‘90s, we wouldn’t doubt it — but you can certainly expect some sailor mouths out of what MacFarlane calls a definite “R-rated comedy.”
“Oh yeah. It’s like a movie. There’s no broadcast standards there. It’s an R rated comedy. […] You can say ‘fuck’, you can say whatever you want. The challenges for something like ‘Ted’ are more external. You’re dealing with a climate that is maybe a little less friendly to comedy than it has been in the past. That’s certainly something that we’re mindful of because we do want to keep Ted Ted. We do want to make sure that it’s not altered.”
We’ll be keeping a lookout for more details, but in the meantime know that our filthy teddy bear pal will be back in full (CGI) form, f-bombs and all.
