Seth MacFarlane is bringing back one of his fan-favorite franchises with Ted. The Peacock show serves as a midquel to the self-named comedy movies, going back to the titular talking teddy bear and John’s high school years and exploring their family dynamic with John’s parents and cousin, college student Blaire.
Max Burkholder and MacFarlane lead the ensemble Ted cast alongside Alanna Ubach, Scott Grimes, and Giorgia Whigham. Taking the story back to the ’90s, the show is full of irreverent pop culture references, heartwarming characters and the R-rated humor fans of the movies are looking for with the franchise.
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Ahead of the show’s Peacock premiere, Screen Rant interviewed writers and producers Paul Corrigan and Brad Walsh to discuss Ted, their collaboration process with MacFarlane, and pushing past their comfort zones into more R-rated writing.
Paul Corrigan & Brad Walsh Talk Ted
Screen Rant: I’m very excited to chat with you both for Ted. I am a big fan of the movies, a big fan of Seth’s, and you guys have done a phenomenal job in continuing this franchise with this show. What was it like when you were first approached by Seth to help continue Ted and John’s legacy on screen?
Brad Walsh: Well, that started with a meeting with Seth, not surprisingly, and we immediately hit it off. We have a lot of the same reference points and sensibilities, and so we were kind of fast friends there. I remember Paul making a very funny joke during that meeting that actually wound up in the pilot. So, it was just sort of a quick collaboration, and it kind of got off to a pretty quick start.
Paul Corrigan: And, we haven’t worked with Seth before, we’ve known about him for a long time, and were really anxious to have the chance to work with him. It seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity. Hopefully, it’ll be more than once in a lifetime opportunity.
Hopefully, I’d love to see more of this show continue, or continue on with something else. What was the joke that landed in the pilot?
Brad Walsh: He was reminiscing about a girlfriend named Sheila, and we were talking about — because the show was a prequel — the ’90s in the thing. And Paul said, “New England is one of the few places you can meet a young Sheila.”
Paul Corrigan: Yeah, all three of us — Brad and I grew up in Rhode Island, and Seth went to Rhode Island School of Design. So, we had a lot of similar cultural touchpoints, and I think the name Sheila was one of them. [Chuckles]
Brad Walsh: The names from New England are very specific, and I will often delight my children by just rattling off the names of people I went to school with, which don’t sound anything like the names of the kids they went to school.
Given that this is your guys’ first collaboration with Seth, the humor is decidedly R-rated, and looking at your past filmographies, I didn’t really see anything that ventured that far. What was it like for you guys to take it a step further?
Brad Walsh: That was something that attracted to us to the project, and also scared us a little bit, to be honest. Working outside of our comfort zone in two ways, both in the CGI animation aspect of the show, and tonally, it’s very different for us. They’re all family shows, so in a way, building them feels the same, but tonally, going in this direction was new for us. People often talk about it in terms of like, “Oh, it’s great. I no longer have to edit myself. “And there’s some of that, but to be honest, we’ve been so good at editing ourselves for so long, it felt like the opposite. I would have to sort of push myself to totally meet Seth halfway, but that was part of the adjustment process.
Paul Corrigan: Yeah, and writers rooms can be sort of famously raunchy, and a lot of that stuff doesn’t get to the page, because you have to make something for TV, eventually. But, in this case, we were able to bring a lot of that to the page, and actually shoot some of the runs that would normally be forgotten.
What would you say was one of your favorite episodes this season to help get to put together?
Brad Walsh: That’s a tough one. We wrote the “My Two Dads” episode, but to be honest, the reason it was really fun was the story-breaking process. The room was just really firing on all cylinders during that story-breaking process in a way that we cannot take credit for. But there are a couple twists in that story that I didn’t anticipate, didn’t come up with, and was very happy to sort of be in the room, to be a small part of them. So, that was a fun moment where things are clicking, and a story suddenly makes sense. Because we’ve told a lot of stories over the years, it’s like, “Oh, I haven’t told that story that way yet.” So, that was fun.
Paul Corrigan: I agree with Brad, that was a great episode. And it was, I think, our first opportunity to really sort of see Seth develop an episode up close, and to work with him doing that. It’s important to figure his style out, and that episode really helped us figure out his style.
Do you guys have ideas about Ted season 2 in the future?
Brad Walsh: We do, we do, and I think there are a lot more stories to tell. Obviously, you’ve got a teenage kid in this family in the ’90s in Boston, and we’ve only made seven, eight episodes. So yeah, we’d love to. We don’t know if that’s gonna happen, but it would be a great thing. We’d love to be a part of it.
Paul Corrigan: Yeah, this season was his junior year in high school. It makes sense to me that the next season potentially would be the senior year, and going to college, or not going to college. However that works out.
Brad Walsh: Also, it is a labor of love for Seth, and he’s very hands-on, and it is an intense show for him. So, he’s in the writers room the entire time. He’s directing, he’s acting, it’s a lot of things. So, certainly, it’s a laborious process, so that might be a reason we might not see anything too soon.
About Ted
In this comedic prequel event series to the Ted films, it’s 1993, and Ted the bear’s (Seth MacFarlane) moment of fame has passed. He’s now living back home in Framingham, Massachusetts with his best friend, 16-year-old John Bennett (Max Burkholder), along with John’s parents, Matty and Susan (Scott Grimes and Alanna Ubach) and cousin Blaire (Giorgia Whigham). Ted may be a lousy influence on John, but at the end of the day, he’s a loyal pal who’s always willing to go out on a limb for friendship.
Check out our other interviews with:
- Scott Grimes & Alanna Ubach
- Max Burkholder & Giorgia Whigham
Ted
Ted is a prequel TV series to the comedy franchise of the same name by Seth MacFarlane. The TV show brings MacFarlane back as the voice of the talking teddy bear Ted, who is growing up in the ’90s with John Bennett and his family. Ted is a Peacock original series that premiered in January 2024.
- Release Date
- January 11, 2024
- Cast
- Seth MacFarlane , max burkholder , Scott Grimes , Alanna Ubach
- Genres
- Comedy
- Creator(s)
- Seth MacFarlane
- Writers
- Seth MacFarlane , Brad Walsh , Dana Gould , Jon Pollack , Julius Sharpe , Paul Corrigan
- Streaming Service(s)
- Peacock
- Franchise(s)
- Ted
- Directors
- Seth MacFarlane , Brad Walsh , Dana Gould , Jon Pollack , Julius Sharpe
