'An Avengers movie every 20 minutes': Seth MacFarlane gets candid about taxing 'Ted' production

Avengers movies, generally, were made with much painstaking effort. But Seth MacFarlane, the creator behind the Ted franchise, said the crass bear films are even harder to make.

The filmmaker shared this in response to a question of why he was making an animated series instead of Ted 3.

“It’s interesting. Initially, the idea of doing an animated show came about because it’s such an undertaking to produce this series," he explained to Comic Book. "It’s a half-hour comedy, but it has the feel of a half-hour, single-camera comedy."

Comparing the Ted-CGI-heavy production to Avengers, MacFarlane said, "I think, oftentimes, people don’t realise that it’s like you are doing an Avengers movie every 20 minutes with the amount of CGI and the amount of care and skill and brilliant animators, both here and in Melbourne, Australia, who lend their talents to bringing this bear to life."

In addition, the animated format would also give space to the franchise actors Mark Wahlberg and Amanda Seyfried to spare time in their otherwise busy schedules because they had to do a voiceover only.

"The one thing the animated series allowed us to do, that we couldn’t do with a live-action show, was pull together people like Mark Wahlberg and Amanda Seyfried – people who are really busy in the film world and would probably not be available to do television in any capacity – to come in and do an hour’s worth of voiceover work each week; it is a little more manageable for them with their schedules. So, it allowed us to pick up after the second movie finished."

It is unclear when Ted: The Animated Show will be released. But MacFarlane expected to air in late 2026 or early 2027.