Ted review: A profane, obvious lampoon of old sitcom tropes
Seth MacFarlane’s vulgar teddy-bear franchise gets a TV spinoff and revamped politics
TV Reviews Ted
For the generation that came up in the ’90s, before the internet could worm its cruel, pitiless tentacles around our minds and hearts, it was TV that shaped us. Game shows allowed people to dream of nicer stuff for the house. Talk shows gave everyone something to bicker about around the table. But it was sitcoms that gave audiences a moral True North—or, at least, they were designed to, which might help explain why television would soon metastasize into a cynical, postmodern wasteland and why most of us have grown into adults with the vagueness of ennui informing every day of our waking lives. Anyway, Seth MacFarlane’s Ted, the latest film series to be spun off into a show (out January 11 on Peacock), incorporates these aspects of TV’s yesteryear—with a strong focus on the family sitcom structure—into a prequel about a young boy and his talking teddy bear.
Of course, being from the creator of Family Guy, the earnestly delivered morality of family sitcoms like Family Ties and Full House are given a profane and metatextual spin in Ted. Throwaway jokes said for shock value become prolonged debates about how they make no sense, like an argumentative cul-de-sac early in the season where 16-year-old John Bennett (Max Burkholder) and his cuddly best friend, Ted (that unholy pairing of MacFarlane and digital plush) volley over who they’d eat first in an Alive-type survival scenario: Tom Hanks or Diane Keaton. Self-awareness simmers at the edges of its single-camera glossiness, like the haughty British narration from the Ted movies that comes and goes seemingly at random. A Bill Cosby joke, so obvious that it’s probably already forming in your mind at the mention of it, is also there to fracture the show’s vintage facade of Framingham, Massachusetts, circa 1993.
And, as befits a modern TV series set in previous decades (All In The Family feels like it should be a touchstone, but this looks and sounds more like The Goldbergs), Ted, which is set in the ’90s and never lets you forget it, is overstuffed with pop references. Some make sense (hey, Zima was everywhere in 1993!) and others are too anachronistically triggering for critical pedants to ignore (“Macarena” didn’t dominate American radio waves until 1996, but whatever). Also, spare a thought for Lori Laughlin, Full House’s Aunt Becky, who is frequently seen smiling from a poster that hangs near John’s bed. John might insist his weed-infused pubescent dreams of Laughlin are pure, but like much in Ted, nothing’s sacred.
Ted takes us back to the age of Sega Genesis, Married… With Children, the Jerky Boys (ask your uncle), and casual racism. But before you take to social media to itemize all of the series’ offensive malfeasances, don’t bother: The series has installed a failsafe for whenever John’s “Boston racist” father Matty (Scott Grimes) flies off the handle (which is often) or when John’s dear-hearted mother Susan (Alanna Ubach) gently dismisses his tirades, in the form of John’s live-in cousin Blaire (Giorgia Whigham), who’s here to set things politically correct.
Matty and Blaire’s arguments are a frequent source of tension in the show. It’s just as calibrated and cynical as the smugly provocative humor that’s so synonymous with MacFarlane’s work, which makes their scenes together about as funny to watch as X (formerly Twitter) is to read, a cake-and-eat-it approach that allows MacFarlane’s characters to say fucked-up things while clearly showing the viewer that he and the show’s writers are not, y’know, “like that.” Matty is the regressive sitcom dad that was being lampooned into the dirt back in the ’90s—he’s a borderline red-pilled fusion of Bill Burr and Al Bundy if Al came with post-Vietnam pathos as well as anti-feminist hostility. Blaire, in turn, is the hip, youthful type who speaks to (or mostly for) the current generation and, as such, is here to spotlight how awful and full of shit Matty is.
Their war of attrition peaks in “Loud Night,” Ted’s Very Special Christmas Episode, in which Blaire, a pot-dealing college student armed with the academic terms that have since worked into the more socially aware political discourse of the last 20-odd years, brings home her girlfriend for the holidays. In the episode, Matty, like his son, wishes upon a star for someone to back him up in his Budweiser-soaked takes on society and thus brings into the world Dennis, Matty’s childhood truck, who, like Ted, is also voiced by MacFarlane but is presented as the paranoid right-wing extremist version of him, which insinuates that Matty’s pent-up regression is but a few beers away from hatching into full-on Trumpism if he doesn’t wise up pronto.
Through Dennis, Matty comes to realize how out of line his screaming invectives are and how they alienate his niece, who has already suffered alienation from her immediate family due to her queer identity. And Blaire, after an awkward heart-to-heart with Susan, realizes that couching her romantic relationship in terms like “good friends” might be unacceptable for her and her partner, but it does keep the holidays on an even keel. In so doing, Ted saps its yuks to find a social middle-ground where warring generations come to some sort of accord before the credits roll, and we await the next episode’s kerfuffle. This stuff’s above the series’ purview; Matty is no Archie Bunker, and Ted sure as hell ain’t All In The Family.
In episodes like this, Ted squirms for relevance, almost like MacFarlane realizes in real time that pitting his acerbic non sequiturs against flesh-and-blood people instead of cartoon characters packs a different kind of punch. Its crass humor isn’t a far cry from the films’ fratty outlandishness, but there’s a caution in Peacock’s Ted that is unmistakable. Also, in retrofitting this Naughty Bear franchise with red-state/blue-state warmongering, its revamped politics scrapes abrasively against the show’s more plainly comedic subplots, as in “Loud Night,” where John and Ted aim to prove that Ted’s miraculous animation means he’s the Second Coming. Maybe the big point of Ted is how everyone around them is losing their minds about changing social mores, yet there’s John and his bear, separated from the tumult, unaffected and unchanged, clearing bongs and watching Flash Gordon. Maybe we are John. Perhaps we are the bear.
It must be said that Ted has its moments, which has much to do with its cast. Burkholder has an aw-shucks appeal as the foul-mouthed proto-Wahlberg, and Alanna Ubach does fascinating things with the kept housewife trope as Susan, a mom who obscures her deep wells of longing with pert suburban cheeriness. Susan differs terrifically from other MacFarlane TV moms; her sexuality isn’t the primal scream of Lois Griffin, but it’s there. And Ubach wields a freakazoid sense of dementedness (a wild evolution from her Beakman’s World days) to convey her character’s arrested sexual development. Her performance says more about the chaste dimensions of family sitcom sexuality and the submissiveness of archaic family roles in general than any speech or poke-in-the-eye reference can about politics. This weirdo subtlety is something Ted could learn to hone if there’s to be a second season.
Ted premieres January 11 on Peacock
40 Comments
This…this sounds awful.
I have to admit, It sounds… More boring than expected. But alas, Trump and his MAGA zealots ruin everything they touch, so at least It isn’t Lady Ballers, which Is a flaming pile of NOPE.
If the review is correct it is does sound boring. But McFarlane is no MAGA zealot if that’s your impression of this. He’s been very vocal against red hats and gives a lot of money to Dems.
Yeah, it’s fair to say MAGA zealots ruin everything, because now everything has to be about them, but McFarlane is definitely clearly anti-Trump and very much on the liberal side.
Me Am Gigantic Asshole.
Absolutely stupid take on your part. But thanks for bringing Lady Ballers to my knowledge. Way to get the word out!
I don’t know if I could bear watching this.
You’ve been warned…
at first plush, this sounds terrible.
These jokes are was… Ted.
Here’s ursine.
Some of these episodes sound a little overstuffed.
I already knew it was a pass for me and just read this review to see exactly how they were going to cloak the isms to get them past decency immunosensors. A “washington generals” progressive tut-tutting the rascally bigot is about right. Bigots, they’re just well-meaning but confused is all!
“Cake and eat it too” is a good summation of exactly what annoys me so much about McFarlane’s work. Like this air that he’s a bright enough guy, but too chickenshit to look uptight in front of the cool kids.
His whole career is “make fun or everybody and everything”, and you can’t be uptight and do that. Not sure what you mean by “cool kids” but he’s straight up made a fool of trump on Family Guy, dedicating an entire episode to it.
White guys love that lie.
He makes fun of white guys more than anyone, just look at the main characters, they’re all dangerously stupid buffoons.
Does anyone watch network sitcoms anymore? I see this as Peacock but does Peacock adhere to network norms? Does anyone actually HAVE Peacock? Too many streamers…*digs through old boxes for Napster-era pirate hat*Like getting your “Employee discount” at the self-checkout, prepare for boarding streamers! You did this to yourself…most of us stopped pirating when streaming became available and inexpensive – you are changing that critical paradigm and I’m sharpening my cutlass!
What?
something something too many choices might as well pirate
Peacock but does Peacock adhere to network norms?I doubt the bear will hang dong, if that’s what you’re asking.
And what’s even weirder is that I’m pretty sure the fact that Ted doesn’t have an actual dong was covered in one of the movies already.
He does have other ways of getting off, though. Hence the immortal line “stick your finger in the loop of my tag!”
I’m not surprised Alanna Ubach is the best part of this show. She’s always good in everything she does.
I loved Beakman’s World when it first aired, but the show lost a good deal of its bite when Ubach left. She was even great in the canceled-too-soon Nicktoon Welcome to the Wayne.
… and Legally Blonde … and Brady Bunch Movie … and The Flight Attendant … and … and … !!!!
I watched the first episode and so far, I like it. Is it groundbreaking or something? Nah but if you enjoy Seth Macfarlane humor, it’s just that.I do, I really enjoy his comedy so it works for me but I def get why others would just be like “meh” to the entire thing. Though any excuse to see Scott Grimes in stuff is worth it alone.
Or “Grimey,” as he likes to be called.
This is worse than the time
Don’t you dare bring Morris Day into this!
Holy shit, I don’t think I’ve seen or heard anyone even reference “Beakman’s World” since it was actively on the air. Man, I haven’t flashbacked this hard since someone reminded me that Ben Vereen was on “Zubilee Zoo”. My memories of childhood are so murky that I worry that I’ve blocked out massive amounts of abuse. Figure it’s probably best to let sleeping dogs lie on that one, though.
Of I LOVED Beakmans World when I was younger, such a fun show. IIRC it was on around the same time as Bill Nye The Science Guy.
It was a little earlier, I think, but I always loved Mr. Wizard, too. Lot more science shows when we were kids.
Yup, I mean 3 to pick from that may not have run at the exact same time, they probably were in reruns, that’s a lot to pick from, and if you were fancy and had cable you had Discovery Channel, which had you know actual educational programming not reality show after reality show.
It’s kind of weird hearing Peter Griffin’s voice as Ted. Seth is amazing at different sounding character voices, he should have tried a different voice for Ted.
Peter has a Rhode Island accent, Ted has a Massachusetts accent. Big difference! /s
Apropos of very little, I’ll take this opportunity to post one of my favorite clips of Scott Grimes as Steve Smith:
8 Ý tưởng về quà tặng khách hàng dành cho công ty phát triển phần mềm.https://www.webtretho.com/f/y-tuong-kinh-doanh-khoi-nghiep/8-y-tuong-ve-qua-tang-khach-hang-danh-cho-cong-ty-phat-trien-phan-mem
who has already suffered alienation from her immediate family due to her queer identity.That’s not why. She doesn’t talk to her family because her dad is an alcoholic and her mom is crazy and her brother is in jail. She addressed all that in one of the first episodes.
I just finished up the series and hope they do another season. I found it to be pretty funny. I laughed out loud at their conversation about Black guys dying in scary movies. Their misguided attempts to try to say the right things were great.