Those who were able to make it to A Conversation with Seth MacFarlane at SXSW peeped a teaser snippet of his first feature film Ted, along with the official trailer for this summer’s debut.
Eric Moro (Wikia) also led an “evolutionary” discussion with MacFarlane (though MacFarlane insisted the word evolution probably shouldn’t be said in the state of Texas, all things considered) and dug a bit into the beginning of his career as a 24 year-old animator with a simple idea that soon blew up into what would become Family Guy. Oh, and surprise guest Mark Wahlberg also made an appearance to talk about his role in the film.
MacFarlane, now working across all kinds of mediums and taking on many different roles, has succeeded in creating not only Family Guy, but American Dad, The Cleveland Show, and he is even working on a recreation of The Flinstones and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. He also has quite the singing voice, and recorded an album Music is Better than Words with a live orchestra that’s straight out of The Rat Pack and topped the iTunes jazz charts.
Seth’s pretty much done it all, and in his latest project Ted, you learn about John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg): an outcast growing up in the Boston area who will do almost anything for a friend (not even the neighborhood kid who gets beat up wants to hangout with him). For Christmas John’s parents give him a teddy bear, who he decides to call Ted. One night John wishes Ted would come to life, and like some wishes, Ted ends up becoming very much alive (MacFarlane voicing his character) the next morning—scaring the shit out of John’s parents and eventually becoming famous for his, uh, coming to life (just how does a teddy bear just come to life out of nowhere? Only Seth MacFarlane could make this one funny and believable).
Flash forward 20-some years later, Ted has becomes less and less of a teddy bear, and more of a humanlike character. The two rip bongs and shoot the shit about women, John turns to Ted for advice about what he should get his girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) for their four year anniversary—a typical discussion between them is Ted making John guess the “white trash-sounding” name of some chick who’s into him. They argue like brothers, even getting to the point where they beat the shit out of each other in a pretty intense fight scene (whoever said a teddy bear couldn’t kick someone’s ass?). But as every romantic relationship goes, John’s time spent with Lori creates somewhat of a triangle effect on him and Ted’s friendship, making for some hostile situations.
We didn’t know what to think of the movie going into it, but after watching just a few minutes we can already tell that this is going to be a mix of offensive humor and classic MacFarlane-style comedy. In an interview with Mark Wahlberg in Collider Magazine, Wahlberg said Ted “[is]off the charts. Working with [Seth] was a dream. He’s such a sweet guy, such a generous guy, I just had a blast. It was one of those occasions like an Adam McKay or a Tim Burton where you just can’t wait to get to the set and be around the guy and watch him do his thing. It was one of those special occasions.”
We don’t doubt for one second that working with the director, animator, singer, and comedian would be anything but dreamlike, can’t wait to see what else is to come from Ted on July 13 (hoping for a world premiere of the trailer sometime in the next few weeks!).
(photos via Ted Trailer & Zimbio)