‘Ted’ Recap – What To Remember Before the Prequel Series Premieres

Ted features a premise that could only come from the mind of Seth MacFarlane: What happens when a boy’s teddy bear comes to life and grows up with him? You get a film that’s raunchy, full of the same humor that populated MacFarlane’s animated offerings, yet with a beating heart of gold underneath. Thanks to a lucrative deal he signed with Universal, MacFarlane is set to revisit the world of Ted this January with a prequel series that explores the bond between the titular stuffed animal and his friend John Bennett (Max Burkholder). Before the series, MacFarlane had directed two Ted films, with one of them becoming a major hit. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the two Ted films and how they set up the events of the Ted series.

Ted

John Bennett, a man whose childhood wish of bringing his teddy bear to life came true, now must decide between keeping the relationship with the bear, Ted or his girlfriend, Lori.

Release Date

June 29, 2012

Rating

R

Runtime

106 minutes

Main Genre

Comedy

Genres

Comedy

Tagline

Thunder Buddies for life!

Why Does Seth MacFarlane’s ‘Ted’ Work So Well?

The first Ted film opens with a brief origin story of how John wished that he’d have a friend and said wish brought Ted to life. Years later, an adult John (Mark Wahlberg), and Ted are still the best of friends to the point where they lie on the couch and smoke weed for most of the day. There’s a complication, however: John has a girlfriend, Lori (Mila Kunis) who wants to take the next step in their relationship. Ted was unique among MacFarlane’s projects because it deconstructed the trope at the heart of all of them: namely, the friendship between an average Joe and his strange pal. Unlike Peter and Brian Griffin in Family Guy or Stan Smith and Roger in American Dad John and Ted’s escapades have actual consequences. A key example comes at the film’s midpoint: when John promises to attend a party with Lori, Ted lures him away to another party…that features Flash Gordon‘s Sam J. Jones. (Yes, this is a sequence that actually happens in this movie.) But while an animated sitcom would play this for laughs, in the film Lori ends up briefly breaking up with John and throwing him out of their apartment.

This leads to the most iconic moment of the first Ted, where John and Ted have a verbal fight about their relationship that extends into a physical fight. It’s a key example of how the film beautifully blends the absurd with the emotional. On the one hand, it’s a surprisingly raw look at two friends working out their various issues and how failing to make any type of change in their lives led to disaster. But on the other hand, one of those friends happens to be a living teddy bear – and the entire fight kicks off because John said he wished his parents had gotten him a Teddy Ruxpin. The rest of the film keeps walking that tightrope, from the sequence where Ted outright performs lewd acts when trying to hook up with cashier Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth) to a moment where it looks like Ted might actually be dead when John holds his lifeless body in his hands. It managed to work: Ted not only raked in more than triple its production budget during its theatrical run, but it’s also one of the most successful R-rated comedies in history!

‘Ted 2’ Squandered an Interesting Premise, Resulting in a Subpar Sequel

Ted 2 featured an entirely new hurdle for its stuffed protagonist, as he and Tami-Lynn wanted to have a child. Given that Ted is…well, a teddy bear and doesn’t have working reproductive organs the couple decides to adopt until the state of Massachusetts decides that Ted is property rather than a person. John and Ted decide to fight it out in court, hiring lawyer Samatha “Sam” Jackson (Amanda Seyfried) to take their case. While the idea of Ted going to court could make for a hilarious yet heartfelt film, Ted 2 doesn’t fully take advantage of this premise.

A sequence where Sam attempts to reference Fredrick Douglass comes off as horrifyingly tone-deaf, and the return of Ted’s lifelong stalker Donny (Giovanni Ribisi) plays out as mainly an excuse to shoot a sequence at New York Comic Con. But the biggest headscratcher comes from how MacFarlane attempts to yet again shake up things between John and Ted. When Ted 2 begins, John and Lori have split up and John’s romantic pursuit of Sam drives a wedge between the two friends. Given that the entire point of the first film was John learning to balance his relationship with Lori and his friendship with Ted, not to mention the fact that the first Ted ends up with John and Lori getting married, this feels out of place. A large part of that may have been because MacFarlane originally pitched a storyline where John and Ted smuggle pot, but scrapped it due to We’re The Millers having a similar plot.

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Related

How the ‘Ted’ Series Pushes the Limits of Comedy, According to Seth MacFarlane

“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.”

Ted 2 wasn’t as warmly received as its predecessor, with reviews leaning more on the negative side as critics questioned everything from the plot to the fact that the mix of raunchiness and sincerity didn’t quite land this time. Even though it was also a financial success, Ted 2 also wasn’t a runaway hit like the first Ted was – that, combined with the less than stellar response to MacFarlane’s Western comedy A Million Ways to Die in the West, led to MacFarlane returning to television.

What Is the Plot of ‘Ted: The Series’?

The Ted series acts as a prequel to the first two Ted films, mainly taking place in 1993 as Ted and John go to high school. Viewers will also get to meet the Bennett family – particularly John’s parents Matty (Scott Grimes) and Susan (Alanna Ubach), as well as his cousin Blaire (Giorgia Whigham). MacFarlane has said that he wants Ted: The Series to match the tone of the Ted films, which means viewers could be in for some gut-busting laughs as well as some tear-jerking moments. Time will tell if the series can live up to its cinematic inspiration, or even exceed it.

All episodes of Ted will be available to stream on Peacock on January 11.

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