Seth MacFarlane’s ‘Ted’ Spinoff Series Gets Trailer And Release Date
Peacock has released the trailer for its upcoming Ted series, based on Seth MacFarlane’s popular feature films. All seven episodes of the series will arrive on the platform on January 11, 2024.
In the trailer, the photorealistic anthropomorphized stuffed animal protagonist looks as good or better than he did in Ted (2012) and Ted 2 (2015). That’s thanks to Melbourne’s Framestore, which animated the main character in the series. Earlier this week, MacFarlane posted his thanks to the studio on Instagram writing that Framestore has “surpassed themselves with their exquisite vfx work on Ted for Peacock. Much gratitude to our Aussie friends!”
Set up as a prequel to those films, the Ted series unspools in 1993, after Ted’s time in the spotlight has faded. Forced to move back home to Framingham, Massachusetts, with his best friend, 16-year-old John Bennett, Ted proves to be a bad influence on the teenage boy.
The series is written, directed, showrun, and executive produced by MacFarlane. Paul Corrigan and Brad Walsh are executive producers, writers, and co-showrunners. MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door Productions produces, along with UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, and MRC.
In a tongue-in-cheek statement accompanying Peacock’s press release for the trailer, MacFarlane, Corrigan, and Walsh wrote:
Each generation develops its own unique artistic style, its own way of seeing the world. In the twenties, it was the subversive musical phrasings of jazz. In the fifties, it was the bold brushwork of the abstract expressionists. Our generation’s unique art is streaming content based on previously successful intellectual property. In that proud tradition, we humbly give you Ted.
Our series is a prequel to the Ted movies. It takes place in the nineties but is based on the timeless truth that being sixteen sucks. The only thing that makes it tolerable is going through it with a friend, even if that friend is a has-been magical teddy bear with a foul mouth and a proclivity for drug use.
The three of us were teenagers in the nineties and grew up in and around Boston, where the show takes place, so many of these stories are personal for us. We were able to put the characters through some of the same indignities and milestones we experienced back then. Also, we made stuff up (it’s a lot of pages to fill and real life is mostly boring).