What exactly did you expect from Seth MacFarlane, the man who brought the world Family Guy and its assorted spin-offs, when he decides to make a movie? If you answered “far too many cut-away jokes,” move along, smart mouth. But if you instead conjured images of sweary small characters and Mark Wahlberg being beaten up by a teddy, we have a winner! The first trailer for Ted can be seen below.
Ted finds Wahlberg as John Bennett, a man who, as a child, wished that his favourite cuddle buddy would come to life. So he did! And they were best friends forever and ever and ever. There’s just one slight catch: John is now fully grown and Ted is still hanging around. Which is both good (when John gets scared of thunder, the big cry-baby, he has someone to seek refuge with) and bad (he’s just moved in with his girlfriend, played by Mila Kunis, and the living situation is awkward).
The bear, animated from MacFarlane’s motion-capture performance, and using his trademark tonsil talents, is everything you'd expect when the man who created Peter Griffin and co is allowed to let rip with R-rated humour. There's foul language, sex jokes, inappropriate behaviour and drug use. Fortunately, it also appears that he was on fine form when he wrote the script, and Wahlberg is a more than willing participant. We’re already imagining that this is the fantasy home life of the actor’s swear-laden cop from The Departed.
We’ll have to wait until August 3 to see how the whole thing works, but this has hints that Ted could be a comedy treat.