‘Ted’ Creator Seth MacFarlane Inks First-Look Deal With UCP As Series Gets Season 2 Premiere Date On Peacock & Releases Images

Season 2 of Ted, Seth MacFarlane‘s prequel series to his movie franchise, will premiere on Peacock March 5, more than two years after Season 1’s January 2024 debut. The NBCUniversal streamer has put out first-look images from the eight-episode new season which, just like the seven-episode first one, will be a binge release.

As Ted is coming back, MacFarlane is staying on, signing a first-look deal with the series’ studio UCP for his Fuzzy Door production company. The new multi-year pact, which had been in negotiations for months, will have Fuzzy Door, led by MacFarlane and President Erica Huggins, continue to develop and produce shows, primarily for UCP and potentially for other divisions of Universal Studio Group.

After more than two decades at 20th Television, MacFarlane moved to UCP at the end of 2019 — which marked the tail end of the pre-pandemic, pre-strike and pre-industry contraction overall deal bubble — with a nine-figure overall deal.

Many of the massive overall pacts made that year with top talent have since been succeeded by first-look pacts, which reflect the current economic realities by lowering the studios’ financial commitment while giving creators and producers more flexibility. (While working under his UCP deal, MacFarlane has continued to produce new seasons of his long-running 20th Television Animation series Family Guy and American Dad!)

In addition to the Ted prequel series, MacFarlane has another Ted universe expansion for Peacock, the upcoming Ted: The Animated Series (working title), which picks up where the Ted films left off with voice cast featuring the movies’ MacFarlane, Mark Wahlberg, Amanda Seyfried and Jessica Barth reprising their roles. Both Ted series are produced by UCP and the films’ production company MRC.

Fuzzy Door also is behind the upcoming Peacock/UCP series The ‘Burbs starring Keke Palmer, based on the 1989 movie. The company’s development slate includes adaptations of the graphic novel series The Shrouded College for Peacock from UCP and of Matt Dinniman’s book series Dungeon Crawler Carl at sibling Universal International Studios.

MacFarlane serves as writer, executive producer and co-showrunner on the Ted prequel series alongside Paul Corrigan and Brad Walsh.

In a joint note to fans about the new season, the trio references the complex shoot and extensive, special effect-heavy post-production involved in Ted whose CGI, motion capture-based title teddy bear character, played by MacFarlane, lives in a live-action environment, interacting with real actors.

They also jokingly bring up the subject of “completion,” which has become a key factor in streamers’ renewal decisions as they look at how many viewers who started a TV season finished it.

We’ve made a second season of our show Ted, which we are excited to share with you. The episodes represent the hard work of our fellow writers, gifted actors, and talented crew, including the visual effects team who bring the character of Ted so convincingly to life.

We hope you enjoy these eight somewhat filthy, hopefully funny heartfelt episodes about a young man, his talking teddy bear, and their highly dysfunctional family. On the off-chance the series is not your cup of tea, a great way to get us back is to leave all the episodes playing to completion on multiple devices throughout the house. That’ll show us.

Warmly,
-Seth, Paul and Brad

The Ted series, whose first season set viewership records for Peacock and Sky, is set in the ’90s when Ted the bear’s (Seth MacFarlane) moment of fame has passed. He’s now living back home in Framingham, Massachusetts with his best friend, 17-year-old John Bennett (Max Burkholder), along with John’s parents, Matty and Susan (Scott Grimes and Alanna Ubach) and cousin Blaire (Giorgia Whigham).

Season 2 is set in 1994, with senior year of high school underway for Ted the foul-mouthed teddy bear and the likable but awkward John. Matty is a blustering, blue-collar Bostonian who sees himself as the unequivocal boss of the house and frequently clashes with his liberal niece Blaire, an outspoken college student who often finds herself at odds with her more traditional-minded relatives.

MacFarlane, who also is directing, executive produces alongside Huggins, Alana Kleiman, Jason Clark, Aimee Carlson for Fuzzy Door.

Fuzzy Door recently produced The Naked Gun movie remake starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson, which has been nominated for a Critics Choice Award. Up next, the company has the Nat Geo documentary Sagan, about the acclaimed astronomer Carl Sagan. Fuzzy Door previously produced Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, a followup to Sagan’s groundbreaking science docuseries, for Fox and Nat Geo.

Here are more images from Season 2 of Ted: