Kids have always talked to their stuffed animals. In Ted, the bawdy teddy bear fantasy that has yielded two R-rated movies and now a new prequel series on Peacock, the furry beast talks back, often in a four-letter flourish, always with the delivery of some out-of-time Boston vaudevillian. He also hits the bong, throws back shots, drives drunk, watches porn, and generally behaves like a teenage troublemaker. Creator (and Ted voice) Seth MacFarlane clearly finds it all funny, having continually returned to this particular well. The thing is, in this case, he happens to be right.
You might feel cheap or dirty as you laugh, or wonder if you’ve finally, fully regressed to a state of belated adolescence. This is the state where MacFarlane, the joker behind Family Guy, American Dad, and other pop culture-happy odes to arrested development, generally resides; he knows the terrain backward and forward, and he could probably navigate it in his sleep (in the case of Ted 2, he seems to have done just that). But this new sitcom sendup provides some waters of rejuvenation. The carpet-bombed gags don’t always hit, but when they do their cleverness resonates, especially for those of us who were alive and consuming culture in the series’ early-Nineties timeframe.
Part of the appeal, in both the series and the original 2012 Mark Wahlberg movie, is the shoulder-shrugging indifference to the fact that some guy wished his teddy bear to life, and that said bear is now out in the world, acting the wiseacre. In the series, Ted is just another part of the Bennett household, best friend and bad influence to 16-year-old John (Max Burkholder), a likable teen burdened with typical teen stuff. John’s burdens include bullies, awkwardness around the opposite sex, and a family that could have been ripped from a working class Nineties sitcom that made a point of being edgy. It’s no accident that both Roseanne and Married…with Children are watched in the Bennett home.
The dad, Matty (Scott Grimes, milking every ounce of modern Archie Bunkerism from his role), is a parody of blue-collar Beantown bluster. The mom, Susan (Alanna Ubach), is a passive, spacy housewife with some hidden depths, as when she finds a porno tape rented by John and Ted and assumes it belongs to her husband, which makes her frightened, excited, and sad all at once. Both parents are nicely realized comic creations. John’s cousin, Blaire (Giorgia Whigham), is a college student living with the Bennetts instead of her own screwed-up family, offering John life lessons and advice on the big, bad world ahead. Ted fits into this tapestry, not quite a family member but abiding by the family rules, such as they are.
The pop culture references fly fast and furious. The Spin Doctors (an agitated Ted, tabbed as a designated driver for Blaire, laments that he has to listen to them sober). Schindler’s List and Jurassic Park (reminding us that Spielberg somehow dropped both of these gems the same year). Some of the nuggets dip into the previous decade: Ted and John have a taste for reruns of The A-Team, Matty is really into Rocky IV, and Ted dresses as an Ewok for Halloween, although people keep mistaking him for Lawrence of Arabia. MacFarlane is adept at swimming in this flotsam and jetsam, so it makes sense that his Ursidae creation would be as well.
Ted is crude by definition, and generally broad. But it can also get gleefully unpredictable. In the aforementioned Halloween episode, Ted and Blaire end up at the home of Claire’s pompous English professor (Josh Stamberg). Ted thinks the professor is trying to seduce Claire. Not quite. He actually wants to bed Ted, and emerges in what looks like a full-body mouse plushy costume. The series has the spirit of improv, including that form’s turn-on-a-dime spontaneity. It also manages to poke fun at the very sitcom genre it embodies. No, it won’t be winning any Peabody awards. But you could do a hell of a lot worse for a show about an ill-behaving toy.
