{"id":3469,"date":"2026-06-14T04:50:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T04:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/06\/14\/awards-chatter-pod-seth-macfarlane-on-his-ted-tv-series-when-to-expect-a-family-guy-movie-and-why-the-emmys-are-so-fed-up\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T04:50:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T04:50:00","slug":"awards-chatter-pod-seth-macfarlane-on-his-ted-tv-series-when-to-expect-a-family-guy-movie-and-why-the-emmys-are-so-fed-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/06\/14\/awards-chatter-pod-seth-macfarlane-on-his-ted-tv-series-when-to-expect-a-family-guy-movie-and-why-the-emmys-are-so-fed-up\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Awards Chatter\u2019 Pod: Seth MacFarlane on His \u2018Ted\u2019 TV Series, When to Expect a \u2018Family Guy\u2019 Movie and Why \u201cThe Emmys Are So F***ed Up\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\tSeth MacFarlane<\/a>, our guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>\u2019s Awards<\/a> Chatter<\/em> podcast \u2014 which was recorded last Sunday in front of an audience at the Newport Beach TV Fest<\/a>, where MacFarlane was honored with the fest\u2019s Maverick Award \u2014 is one of the funniest, smartest and most multi-talented people in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\tAn actor, voice artist, animator, writer, director, producer, singer and songwriter, he has been a power-player in the business for nearly 30 years, dating back to when he became, at just 24, the youngest executive producer in the history of television with Family Guy<\/a><\/em>. And through his Fuzzy Door Productions, MacFarlane has a whole portfolio of shows currently on the air. \t<\/p>\n

\tFamily Guy<\/em> is in its 24th season, and though he long ago stepped back from day-to-day oversight of the show, he continues to provide the voices of Peter, Stewie and Brian Griffin, among others. Another of the early shows that he created for Fox, with Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman, American Dad<\/em>, is in its 22nd season. The \u2019Burbs<\/em>, of which he\u2019s an executive producer, had a well-received first season this year on Peacock. And Peacock is also the home to Ted<\/a><\/em>, the TV series spinoff of his hit 2012 and 2015 films of the same name, the second season of which dropped just a few months ago. He created the show, wrote several episodes and on every episode has served as an EP, the director and provided the voice and motion capture for the titular teddy bear.<\/p>\n

\tOver the course of this episode, MacFarlane candidly discussed The Simpsons<\/em>\u2019 tremendous influence on him; his frustrations with the Primetime Emmys<\/a>; the future of Ted<\/em> and Family Guy<\/em>; and more. You can listen to the full conversation via the audio player above or read excerpts of it \u2014 lightly edited for clarity and\/or brevity \u2014 below. \t<\/p>\n

\tOn the significance of <\/em><\/strong>The Simpsons\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\t\u201cThe Simpsons<\/em> was a show that made us all laugh out loud. Prior to that, there were animated shows in which you could recognize comedy that was good comedy \u2014 like The Flintstones<\/em> and Looney Tunes<\/em> and whatnot \u2014 but you weren\u2019t necessarily laughing out loud. You could acknowledge it, but it wasn\u2019t really hitting you in the gut. Then The Simpsons<\/em> came along and, at least for our generation, just changed everything. Suddenly we\u2019re all sitting there howling with laughter. It was like nothing we\u2019d seen in our lives. That was 100 percent an influence that shifted my trajectory from the Disney path toward the path of doing something more primetime oriented.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tOn <\/em>Family Guy becoming, in 2009, the first animated show since <\/em>The Flintstones, 48 years earlier, to get nominated for the best comedy series Emmy\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\t\u201cThe Emmys are so up fucked up. So much of it is nonsense. First of all, it\u2019s nonsense that we would get nominated for best comedy when The Simpsons<\/em> had not gotten nominated ever. That\u2019s weird. It\u2019s also weird that Family Guy<\/em> never won best animated comedy in the 25 years. There\u2019s a lot of things that are weird about the Emmys that make me think, \u2018Is anybody watching anything, or is this people just checking boxes while they\u2019re fucking shaving?\u2019 And you start to not care a little bit, which is a healthy place to be. What was weird about that [2009 nomination], too, is we weren\u2019t even campaigning for it. I don\u2019t even know if that was our best year. I just suddenly woke up one morning and we got nominated for best comedy. I don\u2019t understand it.\u201d \t<\/p>\n

\tOn the origin of the TV series version of <\/em>Ted\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\t\u201cI got the call from Susan Rovner, who was running NBC at the time, asking me, \u2018Would you want to do a Ted<\/em> TV series?\u2019 So it wasn\u2019t my idea to do this, it was something that they came to me with. Based on the size of the overall deal that they were giving me at that point, I figured I\u2019d better do whatever the hell they want. So it wasn\u2019t like I was itching to do it, but it was interesting. I said, \u2018Is this something that you guys could commit to doing with the same level of quality as the films? I\u2019m not talking about car chases and whatnot, but the bear himself, will you be willing to put the same resources into this, so it doesn\u2019t look like the diet soda version of Ted<\/em>?\u2019 For a half-hour sitcom, it was like $10 million an episode because of the bear, because of all the CGI. And they said, \u2018Yeah, we\u2019re willing to do that.\u2019 And I was like, \u2018Great, then let\u2019s give it a shot.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\tOn the future of <\/em><\/strong>Ted\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\t\u201cI mean, the bear is CGI, so he can go as long as there\u2019s an appetite for him. It\u2019s up to Universal. It\u2019s up to Peacock. A third season in the near future \u2014 I don\u2019t know that there are any plans for that. I\u2019ve thrown the idea out that maybe we do a direct-to-Peacock Ted<\/em> feature with this cast. That might be something that\u2019s kind of fun. It was what, 10 years between the last Ted<\/em> movie and the first episode of this series, and people were still there for it. He\u2019s a character we can bring back at any time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tOn the future of <\/em><\/strong>Family Guy, the series, and the possibility of a <\/em>Family Guy movie\u2026<\/em><\/strong> \t<\/p>\n

\t\u201cI think it can go as long as there\u2019s an appetite for it. I\u2019m consistently shocked at the numbers for the show, that they continue to be very, very high. I don\u2019t know why that is. It\u2019s been so long. It\u2019s been a quarter of a century that this thing has been on the air! The Family Guy<\/em> feature film is something that\u2019s still always in the back of my head. I\u2019ve always had a pretty clear idea of what it\u2019s going to be. It\u2019s that arrow in the quiver that I keep for when everything else goes to shit. [Could that ever happen while the show is still on TV?] Oh, yeah. I always kind of assume that if I have a really dismal professional failure, like I produce a movie or a show that just fails so badly, the only thing that can cleanse the palette of the audience is the Family Guy<\/em> movie. That\u2019s when I\u2019ll do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seth MacFarlane, our guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s Awards Chatter podcast \u2014 which was recorded last Sunday in front of an audience at the Newport Beach TV Fest, where MacFarlane was honored with the fest\u2019s Maverick Award \u2014 is one of the funniest, smartest and most multi-talented people in Hollywood. An actor, voice artist, animator, writer, director, producer, singer and songwriter, he has been a power-player in the business for nearly 30 years, dating back to when he became, at just 24, the youngest executive producer in the history of television with Family Guy. And through his Fuzzy Door Productions, MacFarlane has a whole portfolio of shows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[190,1996,326,340,1997,2,1998,1999,2000,85,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-awards","category-awards-chatter-live-newport-beach","category-awards-chatter-podcast","category-emmys","category-family-guy","category-hollywood","category-newport-beach-tv-fest","category-seth-macfarlane","category-ted","category-tv","category-tv-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}