Seth MacFarlane and Ted.
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His greatest skill is as a voice actor. He does three of the main voices on Family Guy (which is basically The Honeymooners, animated), the lead on American Dad! (The Honeymooners making fun of Republicans) and one on The Cleveland Show (black Honeymooners). "I'd been at The Simpsons too," says Rich Appel, a co-creator of The Cleveland Show, "and with the best voice actors, it's immediately apparent. He seamlessly shifts from distinct character to distinct character." MacFarlane, who studied animation at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), also draws all his characters. When Mila Kunis, who plays Wahlberg's girlfriend in Ted, had to fly from the movie's Boston set back home to L.A. to put her dog Shorty to sleep, MacFarlane drew her a picture. "He cartooned Shorty and Family Guy--ed him. It made me cry," says Kunis, who has known MacFarlane since she was 15 and began voicing the daughter on Family Guy. "And it was amazing. He drew it from his memory. He remembered what Shorty looked like."
No one questions MacFarlane's talent. The only criticism he's gotten, besides from decent God-fearing people everywhere, is that those talents don't lead to deep-enough work. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone will not let up. One South Park episode portrayed the Family Guy writing staff as manatees poking balls labeled with random ideas and jokes down a tube to generate episodes. "That was hilarious and spot-on. It made us rethink our cutaway style," MacFarlane says. "But I've never quite understood the venom they let loose in interviews about Family Guy and about me. I've only met Matt and Trey a couple of times, and I don't remember sodomizing them. Maybe that's the problem." He pauses. "Those are the things you shouldn't say."
MacFarlane is always calm and hyperrational. On Sept. 10, 2001, he gave a lecture at RISD; the next morning, he arrived too late at Boston's Logan Airport to make his flight home. That flight hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. But MacFarlane has said it never haunted him, that it was a random close call with no deeper resonance. He's passionate about getting America to be less superstitious and more aware of basic science. After meeting astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, he became a producer on Tyson's new version of Carl Sagan's Cosmos, which MacFarlane persuaded Fox to air in prime time next year.
"He called to have lunch and asked me 20 questions about the big bang, the early universe, cosmic background radiation, dark matter and dark energy," Tyson says. "A few months later, Stewie's time machine on Family Guy takes him back to the big bang. During the end credits, I noticed I was credited as science consultant. Seth is always working, even when he's just hanging out."
Maybe Ted is about how MacFarlane is working on himself instead of just working--sitting in his office writing and drawing until he collapses and has to go to the emergency room, which happened early in his Family Guy career. Maybe Ted is a signal that he now wants to write stuff with heart, get married, have kids, slow down. That sounds right. Except that at the end of Ted, after the guy gets the girl by growing up, he keeps his teddy bear.