Seth MacFarlane On Why He Waited A Decade To Make A Film (Interview)

"Family Guy's" Seth MacFarlane waited almost a decade to make the switch to feature film with TED. The creator and many voices of the "Family Guy" show put all his efforts into the irreverent animated comedy out of fear of another cancellation.

Everyone knows the story of "Family Guy's" infamous double cancellation by Fox in 2002 after Season 2, and its subsequent reinstatement into the Fox television line-up after its record breaking DVD sales and successful syndication run on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim which proved the outrageous animation comedy still had legs.   Since then, Seth MacFarlane concentrated on the Fox show for the next ten years to avoid a third cancellation.

"'Family Guy' had that little cancellation thing happen to it, and I wanted to make sure that was fully on it's feet after coming back before I stepped away."

It wasn't until 2011 that MacFarlane took on his first directorial project in the live-action comedy TED. In TED, Seth MacFarlane directed, wrote, and voiced Ted, the talking foul-mouthed bear who stars opposite Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis.  Seth MacFarlane told CineMovie at a recent press day, TED was originally conceived as an animated series. He shelved the idea of the talking bear for "numerous reasons" he didn't reveal, but when it came to conceive of his first film, he went back to the idea of the bear, but in a live-action setting. According to MacFarlane, "the story made for a better film than a series."

When it came to TED, Seth MacFarlane could go where he hadn't gone before by bringing his wit and irreverance to celluloid, which he did.  Many in the industry are labeling TED a hard R, but MacFarlane disagrees.  The R-rating to the Family Guy creator suits the film because of its use of language but he disagrees its a hard R versus "a fairly moderately R movie.  "There's no graphic sex. There's NO HEAVY drug use...but it's R for language."

Seth MacFarlane had more freedom without the FCC's involvement in a motion picture, but he discovered during the film's production that it was more difficult "imposing self-restraints" in the absence of someone telling him what he can and can't do. The writer, director and star of TED even edited out a few too many F bombs after a test screening showed the film losing it's "sweetness" because of the harsh language. However, there's plenty of irreverence and un-PC moments from the trash-talking, not-so-cuddly bear left to offend at least one ethnic group.

TED opens June 29, 2012.