Seth MacFarlane Says 'Ted' Could Run for "20 Seasons"

Ahead of the season's streaming premiere, Collider's Perri Nemiroff had the opportunity to moderate a roundtable discussion with MacFarlane, Grimes, Whigham, and Burkholder to chat about the behind-the-scenes craftsmanship that goes into creating Peacock's most-watched original title. They discuss bringing Ted to life, the skills they learned and honed from Season 1 to Season 2, making out with fake bears, and how long a series like this could run. The crew also gets surprisingly emotional talking about some of Ted's heavier topics, sharing scenes with one another, including series stand-out Ubach, and MacFarlane's exceptional direction. Check out the full conversation in the video above, or you can read the transcript below.

'Ted' Season 2 Is Like "Doing a Marvel Movie Every Half Hour"

Seth MacFarlane highlights the Emmy-worthy efforts behind every episode.

PERRI NEMIROFF: Seth, can you tell us a little bit about the effects challenges of bringing Ted to life on screen, and how that process evolved from the films to Season 1, and how you refined it in Season 2?

SETH MACFARLANE: It, amazingly, has not evolved much at all from the films. It's exactly the same process that we used. Somehow, the animation of Ted in the series, I think, has surpassed anything we did in the films. It's a combination of Blair Clark, our fantastic VFX supervisor here in LA, and our team at Framestore Melbourne in Australia. They take what I do on set, my gestures and my facial expressions, and they build upon it and create a sequence of character animation that is tantamount to doing a Marvel movie like once every half hour, and I don't think they've ever been properly recognized. Emmys, are you listening? It's extraordinary. As somebody who has spent his whole life in animation, I've never seen, for television, anything approaching what these folks have done for this series. But it's the same way we did it when the first movie came out.

You speak the truth, though. It's hard enough doing something like this on a feature film, but in order to keep the technology going for an entire season, let alone two of television, it's not easy.

MACFARLANE: I always equate it to the measles vaccine. It's like, “Well, why do we need to be vaccinated? There's no measles.” Well, yeah, because there was a vaccine. Ted, as an animated character, is kind of a victim of his own success. They did such a good job for the show that you don't even think about him. He's just another person, which is what we want. We don't want people thinking about the fact that this is animated.

Certainly, from the viewer's perspective, it feels right. I do have a specific question about one moment. I believe this is in Episode 2. I've always found Ted to be a very expressive character, but the moment when Mrs. Robichek turns him down, the sadness on his face there, and then also seeing tears stream down his face in the car, that hit me pretty hard. Is something like that more challenging than anything you've done before?

MACFARLANE: No, I mean, again, that is a combination of what we did on set and what they record from my face and my movements. And then that's kind of like the raw material.

MAX BURKHOLDER: From a performance standpoint, was it harder?

SCOTT GRIMES: He's a big crier. Yeah. I remember that.

MACFARLANE: Oh, a huge crier. I could cry right now if you wanted me to.

GRIMES: Like Fonzie? Don’t Fonzie cry! [Laughs]

MACFARLANE: No, that was a John Ritter. That’s what that was. No, it’s so layered. I give them what I have on set, and then the tears streaming down and the subtlety and the nuance, that's Framestore Melbourne. That's these brilliant animators that get this raw, untreated sewage that I send them, and they turn it into something that's really, really artful. Give these guys an Emmy, guys.

Sincerely. I was watching a breakdown video they did of this whole process. It's next-level technology.

MACFARLANE: It is next-level technology, but it's also just talented animators who know judiciously where to add and where to leave things alone. It's where to augment, where to embellish, and where less is more. That's a talent in and of itself.

Acting Opposite an Invisible Bear

The cast explains the weirdest challenges of Season 2.

Talented animators and also talented actors to work opposite this character. To pave the way from Season 1 to Season 2, can you each tell me something, like a skill you picked up when it comes to acting opposite Ted, that came in handy on Season 2?

GRIMES: It didn't come in between. It came like in the second week of Season 1. It was really neat being on the set that first. We did like a week or two of rehearsal, and he would stand there, and he would say, “Guys, it's going to happen. You're going to hear me talk, and you're going to turn to where I am, but we have to figure out…” And it was almost like I was nervous, because if I couldn't figure this out, was I going to get rehired for the show? Insecure actor here, and it took about a week. He was used to it, probably, from doing the films. It was a big issue for you at first, right?

MACFARLANE: I mean, I've known you for 20 years. You’re not going to get fired. [Laughs]

GRIMES: No, but it was really in the two weeks, and I was really happy when Seth's voice didn't make me turn to set. It sounds really simple, but it wasn't.

It’s a hard thing to train yourself out of!

GIORGIA WHIGHAM: I think the imagination is so crazy, the skills that we all developed on this show. I mean, it was weird. You kind of feel like, or I don't know, I do a little bit, like I'm going crazy in a way because I can see him there in the room, and he's not actually there. It's because of you, [Seth], and it's because you're doing the voice. I think that's the biggest skill that I've learned is learning how to conjure him up with the help of you and just our imagination.

Does he haunt your dreams now?

WHIGHAM: [Laughs] All the time.

GRIMES: But money helps, too.

BURKHOLDER: I will say the life-size Ted doll that they send each of us sits at the dining room table of my parents' house in Studio City, and every time I go over there, I see him. He watches everything that happens at that house.

But more to Scott's point, yeah, the learning curve was really sharp in the first two weeks. I feel like there are one-offs and odd moments where, still, like he's saying, you'll look over where Seth is standing instead of talking to where the bear should be. But after a few weeks, it really settles in, and your brain does its magic, and you catch up to it.

So you iron out the process pretty quickly, but in Season 2, there are still some rather new and ambitious things done between live-action characters and Ted. Is there anything you had to do in Season 2 that maybe tripped you up the most, whether it's some sort of physical challenge or even just nailing a tough dialogue-driven scene?

GRIMES: When Ted's running away outside, I had to pick up a completely invisible Ted and throw him like a football. And you, [Seth], dude, my whole life, I considered myself a good athlete until…

BURKHOLDER: That’s funny.

MACFARLANE: Really?

GRIMES: He's on this god mic. He directs with this mic…

MACFARLANE: That’s something I would never say about myself.

GRIMES: Oh, I'm saying it. I’m a good athlete.

WHIGHAM: I am too. I would say it about myself 100%.

MACFARLANE: I would say it about you, but really?

BURKHOLDER: What about me? Would you say it about me?

MACFARLANE: Max, I don’t know you well enough.

GRIMES: But trying to throw a fake football — fake, without the football — I was like, “Uh!” [mimes throwing poorly], and he would come on the mic, like, “It doesn't look like you're throwing a football.” Well, I’m not throwing a football! I'm throwing a fake bear that you made up in your dreams, bitch! [Laughs]

Is any of that in that scene physically there? At least when you're hitting him with Ted?

GRIMES: Yes.

BURKHOLDER: Oh yeah, that was really fun.

Okay, just making sure!

WHIGHAM: I think when I had to make out with Ted, that was a new thing that I had never done before.

MACFARLANE: You had a head or a torso?

WHIGHAM: I think I had both. I had the egg and the head.

MACFARLANE: Yeah, the egg being the torso.

WHIGHAM: We call it “the egg.”

BURKHOLDER: Because when you take his head and his limbs off, it's shaped like an egg.

MACFARLANE: As I recall, you had Ted's head and nothing else.

WHIGHAM: Yeah, I was holding it. Oh, at one point, yes. I think we maybe rehearsed with the whole thing, but yeah, I was holding on to his head and just like, “Okay, it's a drunk, crazy makeout scene. Should I just go for it?” And they were like, “Yeah.” So hopefully it was clean. It probably wasn't.

GRIMES: Did you have to makeout with just the body and no head there?

WHIGHAM: No, thank god! That would have been so awkward.

GRIMES: Someone’s gonna make you do it.

MACFARLANE: It’s a lot of math because, and this happened in the movie, as well, with Ted and Tami-Lynn, you have this big… And I don’t even think the snout is on there, so you have to kind of fake everything, and you have to be cognizant of the fact that the animators have to…

BURKHOLDER: Work around what you’re doing.

MACFARLANE: Wherever you're placing that head, the body has to work with it. So there's a lot of this weird responsibility.

BURKHOLDER: That’s what she said. And I had to fight Ted on stage at one point. That was also kind of hard.

All very, very good sequences here.

How 'Ted' Pulled Off a Full-Blown Dungeons & Dragons Episode

"Only in Season 2 could you do something like this."

I am so excited to start highlighting specific episodes, beginning with Episode 3 of Season 2. This is “Dungeons & Dealers.” Again, I'm just so impressed by what you're able to accomplish with this production. Ted is an ambitious show all on its own, so what is it like deciding that you need a Dungeons & Dragons episode and figuring out how big you can go with a concept like that?

MACFARLANE: Jesus Christ. Look, we had done a lot of shows that had taken place in the house, in the school, in this world that we had created. Only in Season 2 could you do something like this. I'm a huge fan of practical sets. I love walking around in caves sets, in forest sets. The forest in that episode was built entirely on a soundstage. The caves were built on a sound stage, the temple.

WHIGHAM: How many tons of dirt was it? Do you remember? We were, like, freaking out. It was a lot.

BURKHOLDER: They flew in special dirt to coat the floor of the soundstage, which was wild to find out.

MACFARLANE: From Siberia.

BURKHOLDER: From, I think, Michigan.

MACFARLANE: It was Michigan? Was it really?

WHIGHAM: I don't know. I freaked out when I heard how much it was. I, of course, can't remember, but it was a lot.

Honestly, if you had said any number, I would have been like, “Wow, that's incredible!”

BURKHOLDER: “Five whole pounds of dirt?” [Laughs]

What was it like for the three of you stepping on those sets for the first time, putting on those costumes, and also essentially taking your characters out of their typical locations?

GRIMES: Well, as an athlete… [Laughs] No. I'm actually going to complain. As much as I love the Dungeons & Dragons thing, I loved it, when I saw the conceptual art, and I had that bald spot, I was like, “Is there anything for me to look cool in this show ever?”

WHIGHAM: We all looked pretty cool.

BURKHOLDER: We all looked dope except for Scott.

GRIMES: I looked like an idiot!

BURKHOLDER: I had a staff. I had a robe.

GRIMES: And I just kind of started dating someone on the show, too, and every day I'm coming to the set looking like that.

BURKHOLDER: Well, that’s how you know she really likes you.

GRIMES: So, I didn’t like that episode.

MACFARLANE: Scott, look at it like Charlize [Theron] in Monster. She was so good. She was like, “I don't care about looking foolish. I don't care about looking ugly. I don't care that there's this prosthetic all over my face.”

WHIGHAM: Didn’t she win an Oscar?

GRIMES: But it was on top of all the things I’d done already! That's what I'm saying. My hair is curled every day, the mustache, the “weight gain.”

MACFARLANE: Listen, this is one of the finest actors I've ever worked with in my career, so we push him. We push him to do things that are the edges of the boundaries.

GRIMES: I never saw it that way.

MACFARLANE: An edge and a boundary are sort of the same thing. But, you know.

Seth MacFarlane Says 'Ted' Can Go for 20 Seasons

"If something is character-based, it can go indefinitely."

We're going to get back to some exceptional performance beats in a minute, but just to tee up how the story evolves this season, Seth, I'll throw this question to you because, to be completely honest, I watched Season 1, and I absolutely loved it, but I did think to myself, “Is this concept going to lose steam? How long could this keep on going for?” And then I watch Season 2, and I'm like, “They nail it yet again.” So more broadly, can you tell me a little bit about figuring out how to keep the idea of a talking teddy bear fresh, while still giving people more of what they already love?

MACFARLANE: I will not out any particular streaming series — you can do that math in your head —, but there are certain series that are premise-based and other series that are character-based, which is how television operated for decades. You watch Friends, you watch The Office, those are character-based shows. If something is character-based, it can go indefinitely because it's whatever situation you choose to put these people into, because it's the people that your audience is showing up for.

That's the simplest answer I can give. Ted is a character-based show. The only thing that hinders us is the expense. To create the bear is a lot of money. But you have these fantastic actors, you have this fantastic writing crew. You can do as many as you want. I mean, you could do 20 seasons of this thing, and it would work, but you have the CGI element that makes it challenging. But story-wise, to answer your question, it can be indefinite. There's no limit to the number of stories you can tell with characters that people want to visit week after week.

To build on that a little, this is looking back for the three of you, but I love hearing about these kinds of moments. What is the first thing that happened between the four of you, and also Alanna [Ubach], when you first started on this show that made you look at everyone and go, “We are the perfect group of people to play this family?”

BURKHOLDER: I think it might have happened during the rehearsals at the beginning of Season 1. What we knew was going to be a challenge going into it was the big family dinner table scenes, both between all of us like real-people actors, and then also Seth as the voice. We knew that getting the timing of those was going to be really important, so that was the first thing we worked on in rehearsals.

I don't even remember which scene it was in particular, but looking around at everybody, and honestly, how quickly it fell into place, not even any particular moment, but just how easily we all sort of ended up coming together and finding that rhythm together, I was like, “Oh! Yeah, this is gonna be fun.”

WHIGHAM: Yeah, I agree. I was going to say the same thing about the rehearsals. It was just really special off the bat. Also, I did chemistry reads with you and with Alanna, and so that was really cool to get to do because it was like there was kind of no question. The bond was there. And then I think what really solidified it for me was Season 1, I always think back to, I think it's the first dinner scene that we have, where Blaire's accidentally racist as a kid. Black Barbie. Yeah, I think that scene played out so well, and it was so much fun when we were doing it. All of the dinner scenes, all of the family scenes in Season 2, even the argumentative ones, they're so much fun.

GRIMES: I'm not one to sit here and talk about character and what I do as an actor because what a gift it is, and it's a simple, easy job compared to other jobs…

MACFARLANE: You do have a gift.

GRIMES: Thank you. My gift… [Laughs] No, but no matter how well you cast this, you still don't know on that first day, second day, third day that it's going to be what this turned out to be, as four people and Ted coming together.

MACFARLANE: I think you do. My experience has been, with every single person at this table, that it's actually very easy. Every single person at this table was very clearly right for the part. It's not like, “Oh, there’s this person or this person.” There are a lot of writers and a lot of actors and a lot of people in Hollywood who try and are very good, but the people who are right for something stick out so far.

GRIMES: Did you know that all those pieces you put together were going to work together?

MACFARLANE: No. That you don’t know, but you know that each individual character is right for the part.

GRIMES: And you could just tell that right away. I feel like a veteran for the first time. I don’t mean because you guys are younger, I just felt like everything I had learned as an actor up to that point, I was being tested for this, and it was a challenge. Not that I'd like to talk about a fucking challenge, but we work hard. And yeah, the only thing I've ever done where I'm like, “Oh, I see, all this theater work and all this stuff are done, I'm going to have to bring to this table.”

And everyone was fearless, too. You have to be willing to fail a little bit. You're great at it, [Max]. [Laughs] And I don't mean that the way it sounds.

BURKHOLDER: I fucking knew this was coming, actually.

MACFARLANE: Max, you failed daily, and that’s why we love you.

BURKHOLDER: Athlete to athlete, Seth, I really appreciate that.

GRIMES: Both of you guys, but more so him. You just say things. Most of them are funny, but you're okay if they're not, and that's why you come up with the best shit, right? It's just a table full of people.

What a good quality to have.

GRIMES: You know my old thing I like to say!

BURKHOLDER: “I love sitting with a table full of people!”

MACFARLANE: It is worth mentioning because day one, we said, “Max, we'll try three takes of this and the last take we're just going to do whatever we want. Fuck the script.” And it's not like you had this Will Ferrell background in comedy, but yet literally from day one, you were like, “Great, I don't care. I don't care what people think. I'm just going to do it.” There's a willingness not to be afraid of looking foolish. The little acting training I’ve had, and it's very little, that's the core of it, and you can do it.

BURKHOLDER: As someone who routinely looks foolish in day-to-day life outside of acting, you build up a tolerance.

MACFARLANE: He says that, but look at his chest.

'Ted' Balances Raunchy Comedy With Surprisingly Real Heart

It wouldn't be the MacFarlane we love if it had nothing to say.

Let's dig into your performances with some specificity now. Scott, you're first on my list because the first episode that I wanted to highlight in this respect is Episode 4. This one's “The Mom’s Bombed Rom-Com.” I love, love, love this episode, and I want to use this as an opportunity to highlight your collaboration with Alanna, because the two of you have perfect banter, and then seeing her take it to an 11 with the physical comedy was such a delight. Can you tell me a little bit about working with her, going from sober Susan to many-many-glasses-of-wine Susan?

GRIMES: Alanna's like a monster. And by the way, this is going to sound like I’m complimenting myself again today, but I felt like I was… Oh, god, I heard somebody say this once, and I'm about to say it, but I mean it the way they probably did, but it didn't come across good when they said it. I feel like I was acting with the version, like she has the same rules and stuff that I do. So, we were kind of built to play husband and wife, play that together. She's far better than me, having said that, because she never does the same thing twice, which sometimes you don't like because you're the kind of person that's like, “Once I find it…”

MACFARLANE: No, editing it is a challenge, but that's okay.

GRIMES: But she was the hardest one to act with and not break.

Oh, I bet.

GRIMES: One-hundred percent. It was a gift. I don't think I would have been as good if it weren't for her.

BURKHOLDER: I know this wasn't addressed to me, but just because Alanna’s not here, I want to throw a few more flowers her way. There was a moment in the “Susan is the New Black” episode, I think it's her final monologue, where she's talking about, like, “I'm going to die here, right here.”

I wrote that down! It’s such a good scene.

BURKHOLDER: In that moment, I forget, there was some issue happening, like at one point there was an issue with sound, at one point there was an issue with camera, at one point it was an issue of just remembering the lines at some point, but Alanna had to do that final monologue in a close-up probably 30 times in a row, with no breaks. Straight up. It was the last thing we had that day. We had to make the day, and she did it 30 times in a row. And I'm not kidding you, she did not lose steam one fucking time. And then when Seth called cut, she collapsed onto the ground because that shit is exhausting. Anyone who's ever had to do anything like that knows that's exhausting. She's a fucking workhorse. She's a powerhouse. She's a monster.

Tell her all that work was so well worth it, because that was one of my favorite scenes in the entire season.

MACFARLANE: You know what’s funny? This is the only episode that I co-wrote this season. Ghost, Pretty Woman, Steel Magnolias, all three of those movies I had never seen until I started writing that draft, and my exec at Fuzzy Door, Alana Kleiman, gave me a list, like, “These are the movies you have to watch to write this.” And so I watched all of them, and I enjoyed them all. Loved them all.

It's an essential list!

BURKHOLDER: Did you cry?

MACFARLANE: Ghost, I cried a little bit. The other two I loved, but Ghost really hit me.

GRIMES: Because I'm not gonna get this opportunity, but that episode, I had to be in front of a television, and there's like a two-page thing of the process of Matty getting emotional and watching this thing, and I could never have done that without you, [Seth]. You are such a good director — ah, I think I'm getting emotional right now talking about it — when an actor needs that safety net, like, “Okay, I'm going to do this. Nobody's gonna laugh, right?” He would play music for me.

MACFARLANE: But you guys are both engines, and as someone who's worked opposite an engine in Charlize Theron in the Western, you guys are both engines. And I appreciate it, but it's like you're doing all those scenes opposite Giorgia, and you guys are both engines. You both can generate the power.

WHIGHAM: But it's nothing without somebody who's going to support you, I think is what you're getting at, and thank you.

GRIMES: And you took on a whole thing. You didn’t make a ton of jokes. You're one of the top directors when it comes to an actor needing something.

MACFARLANE: Let's not turn this into a masturbation ceremony.

BURKHOLDER: Damn it! [Laughs]

I love watching collaborators give each other flowers, so I could listen to this all day long.

BURKHOLDER: “But sadly, we have to move on.” Is that where that’s going?

I do want to make sure to highlight a key scene for both of you. Giorgia, you probably know I'm going to go straight to Episode 6, because I just never expected an episode of this show to tackle abortion. And more broadly, that's one of the things that I really appreciated about this particular season. You guys did it a little bit last season, but you keep the comedy ridiculous and fun, but you're tackling so many very heavy issues, and it's just really incredible to me how you're able to do both at once. So, when you find out that is part of her storyline this season, what is your first reaction?

WHIGHAM: Oh, excitement. That sounds terrible, but I mean it just in the way of like, this is something I'm really, really, really passionate about, and I think that it couldn't have come out at a better time. It was really important for me to, if there were going to be series beats in this season, I'm really glad that that was one of them and that it was my job to highlight it. It was really awesome.

There are a lot of exceptional scenes in that episode, but I'm going to use this as an opportunity to highlight Alanna yet again. Two of my absolute favorites were the scene in the kitchen when she refuses to drive you, and it smashed my heart into a million pieces, but then also that final scene where the two of them have to come back together, but not wholly be on the same page. I thought those were so beautifully performed. Can you tell me a little bit about working on those with her?

WHIGHAM: Yes. Oh my god, the one in the middle where I ask her for her help was really heartbreaking. And it's strange because nobody's method on the show, but it's weird to address Alanna like that. Everybody who knows Alanna knows it's the complete opposite of what she would do. She's the biggest supporter of women, and I love her, so it was really tough. I love her so much, so to hear that, it smashed my heart, too.

But I think to highlight the last scene, actually, it affected me way differently than I thought it was going to. I was actually more affected by that scene while filming than the one in the middle of the episode, which I thought it would be that one. But she is just so honest when she acts alongside you and with you, I couldn't help but genuinely get really choked up. I don't know what take they ended up using, but I was really moved by that. She's just amazing. So yeah, it was beautiful.

Very, very well done in every single respect in that episode.

MACFARLANE: We have to shout out Chelsea Davison, who is the writer of that episode, who has written jokes for me for many, many years, wrote that episode, wrote on the first season of Ted. We’re developing a pilot with her.

BURKHOLDER: Did she write the D&D episode, too?

WHIGHAM: Yeah, I think so.

MACFARLANE: She did! Yes, she did. She’s brilliant.

WHIGHAM: She’s epic.

MACFARLANE: She's one of the funniest people in Hollywood. Very, very thoughtful construct of that scene.

There's so much thoughtful stuff this season. Max, the next question I have is for you, and it's about Episode 8, when they're dealing with Matty’s health issues. This is another situation where, as the audience loving a comedy, I want to see you have fun with the ridiculousness of faking the news for your dad, but I also still need to feel the fact that he’s genuinely scared for him. So what is it like doing that throughout that episode?

BURKHOLDER: Yeah, for sure. I mean, this is a very, intentionally so, ridiculous show. The way I approached it for this season, even more so than Season 1, was like, “Oh, this is a cartoon. We are absolutely shooting a cartoon here.” But you're right about having to be scared. There are stakes in the rest of the episode, like, “Oh no, I'm worried that the school superintendent inspector is going to catch me for having jerked off to a phone sex line,” which has a different timbre to it when you're approaching it than “I'm worried that my dad's going to die.” So, it was definitely a difference there.

MACFARLANE: Is it pronounced tam-br?

BURKHOLDER: Yeah. T-I-M-B-R-E.

MACFARLANE: Is it? I thought it was TIM-ber.

BURKHOLDER: It’s tam-br.

MACFARLANE: Holy shit.

BURKHOLDER: Yeah. And with that, everybody!

Fun facts.

GRIMES: You approach masturbation differently than death? [Laughs] That’s what I got out of that.

MACFARLANE: Does it feel like we're at a seance? I just have to say it.

BURKHOLDER: And we’re summoning the spirit of Alanna Ubach.

If you brought the Ouija board from set, I would play on that Ouija board all day long.

"There's always a piper..."

I’ve got to wind down with you, so I'm going to go from that to ending on one of the most wholesome questions I have in my back pocket. Making TV shows is really, really hard, so I like forcing people to take a moment to think about the moments of joy they experienced on set. So, for each of you, can you single out one moment from making Ted Season 2 that filled you up or brought you the most joy as an artist?

GRIMES: Wow! I mean, my original thing was going to be every moment, but that's lame. But you asked for a specific moment. So, don't wait on me.

BURKHOLDER: Does it have to be from Season 2?

I'll take something from Season 1.

BURKHOLDER: I think it was the last day shooting Season 1. I've been doing this for a really long time. I've been in this industry since I was three years old, but I had never been so far in front of something so big until Season 1 of the show, and the last day we were shooting, I was feeling just really emotional, and saying “bye for now” to everybody was really heartbreaking, but it was also really joyful.

Something that really, legitimately, brought me so much joy was the last thing we shot, the last thing of the whole season that we shot, was me opening a cabinet and checking to see if there were snacks in there, and then closing it. And so I do that, and we go one more time, just for safety — it's the simplest shot of all time — and then Seth, over the God Mic, just goes, “Max, you want to take that one more time? I think you can do better.” And I'm just like, “God damn it!” And I’m almost crying with laughter.

MACFARLANE: I really did need another one.

BURKHOLDER: Yeah, well, you didn't get one, so I hope it still worked out.

WHIGHAM: I think it's really hard to pick one. There's one behind-the-scenes thing that happened that was really funny. Max got Scott a really, really, really big cast chair.

GRIMES: That was going to be mine!

WHIGHAM: Oh no! I'm sorry.

GRIMES: No, no, it’s okay.

WHIGHAM: Okay, I’m sorry. I think I have a photo of it on my Instagram.

GRIMES: You know the chairs with your name, but it was… Like, who…?

BURKHOLDER: It’s well over this big.

GRIMES: You look like Lily Tomlin. Do you get the reference? The Incredible Shrinking Woman. You’ve never seen Lily Tomlin in The Incredible Shrinking Woman?

MACFARLANE: Yeah, no, like years ago.

GRIMES: When she’s in the big chair.

BURKHOLDER: Don’t you love the references and how we always understand them? They’re always so relevant.

WHIGHAM: But I also really quickly just want to say any scene that we are all in. I know that sounds silly, but even this season, with the abortion scene. Whenever me and [Scott] have anything back and forth, it's just so much fun.

GRIMES: By the way, you stole both of mine. I'm not mad.

WHIGHAM: It’s good.

GRIMES: I want you to believe me. The first one was the chair because that was fun, but I didn’t remember who got it for me, I'm not going to lie.

BURKHOLDER: It was Greg's idea anyway.

GRIMES: That's why. But the other one was, there's something — I am not about to compare us to the Beatles, but there's something about when you're in a band or you’re on a team, or you're in a platoon, and you're going through stuff…

MACFARLANE: There’s always a moment on every show when it's like the cast of Suddenly Susan, and somebody goes, “Listen, I don't want to compare us to the Rolling Stones, but there was a moment…”

GRIMES: [Laughs] That's not what I mean, but when you're going through anything, a family, or whatever, whatever, whatever. And in Season 2, it started to be like, “Oh, look what we've done. We did this together!” Whether it's good, whether it's bad, not the Rolling Stones, but you know what I mean? And you're like, “Oh, this connection we have every day is why we're having fun, it's why maybe it's going to be good.” So, I couldn't really think of a moment. It’s just a cool thing when you get to do something with somebody. And it's violent working together every single day for fucking five months. You're violently together all day long.

BURKHOLDER: We were violently together.

I’ve never heard someone describe it quite that way, but I do know what you mean.

GRIMES: I can’t get away with shit. Every time I open my fucking mouth, these pipers… [Laughs] Like piping up?

BURKHOLDER: These pipers? [Laughs]

GRIMES: I don't think we're The Rolling Stones or The Beatles.

MACFARLANE: “Scotty, there's always a piper.” That’s the last line of some movie that I hate, but probably got great fucking reviews.

GRIMES: I wanted you to commit to that exit, too. It looked like you were going to leave. We were like, “This is gonna be a good bit.”

MACFARLANE: You know what? There’s always a piper…

GRIMES: Why aren’t you leaving?

MACFARLANE: You let “There's always a piper,” be the last line.

Please don’t leave and answer the question!

GRIMES: What's your favorite moment?

BURKHOLDER: Joy! Not about fucking pipers.

MACFARLANE: Look, I'm a huge All in the Family fan. Look it up, watch it, Season 1 to Season 9, thank me later. There's a moment where Scotty and Giorgia have a scene, and it's interesting talking to both of them after the fact, in Season 1, where she's going to leave and he wants her to stay. I remember Scotty saying to me, “I couldn't have done that scene without her looking at me like that,” and it's sort of what Norman Lear did at his best. There are all the jokes and the laughs, but at the same time, there's a soul and a heart in each of these characters. They're so at odds, and they're so at opposite ends of the emotional and political spectrum, and yet in that moment, one of them is reaching out to the other, and he needs to, and the other is ultimately willing to accept it. These are two phenomenal actors — I’ll come up with one for you, too, [Max] — at their best, and that's a great moment because it makes all the jokes and everything worthwhile.

I mean, look, there's Max coming down the stairs stoned.

BURKHOLDER: George Lopez? Yeah.

MACFARLANE: Singing… What the hell’s the song?

BURKHOLDER: “Low Rider.”

MACFARLANE: Yeah. And they're hearing it one way, and in reality, it's another way. And we just got that in time before you broke, but my god, up to that point, what a genius.

GRIMES: Wait. I just want to say I was not comparing us to the Beatles. People are going to think that, and now, I have to pay the piper.

Ted Season 2 premieres on Peacock on March 5, with all episodes available to stream.