f13.net

Seth MacFarlane, whose $100 million contract with Fox makes him the highest paid TV writer in history, is now trying to take over the cineplex, with the same old shtick. You could pluck his oeuvre out of the summer movie-preview articles without any difficulty. His was the one where "the teddy bear comes to life and becomes a profane slacker who practically lives inside a bong and hires hookers in groups."

The movie's title is "Ted." It won its opening weekend with a $54 million gross at the box office. Clearly, MacFarlane's fans cannot consume enough of his pop-culture sewage.

"Ted" is a fitting metaphor for MacFarlane himself. He is the magical creation everyone in Hollywood seems to find as cute as a furry stuffed animal. He's made his fortune by putting the crudest, most offensive utterances in the mouths of babies, dogs and completely idiotic man-children. Hollywood is never having to grow up.

So the idea that this movie would center on a real man-boy named John Bennett who must grow up seems odd. Why grow up? Perpetual adolescence clearly has worked for some people. Here again, MacFarlane is Ted, holding back the real slackers by keeping them in a state of mental pimple-popping for his own personal gain.

This is the plot: As a boy, Bennett has no friends, so on Christmas night he wishes on a shooting star that his teddy bear could really talk to him and be his best friend — and then it happens. But it's supposedly much funnier when the movie fast forwards 27 years, and Bennett and his teddy bear are pot-smoking losers who watch too much television.

Now as one of Hollywood's most vicious atheists, it would seem like quite a sellout for MacFarlane to make a movie with a "magic wishes" plot centering on Christmas night, no less. This movie pounds away with the usual and very tired Whack-a-Mole jokes about sex, drugs and bodily functions, presumably because it can't really plot its way out of a paper bag. Even the wish-upon-a-star thing is as old as "Pinocchio."

Yeah, I heard that this movie did $54 million at the box office and my first thought was "HOW?" then "WHY GOD WHY?"

Woop woop woop, agenda detected.

Yeah, I heard that this movie did $54 million at the box office and my first thought was "HOW?" then "WHY GOD WHY?"

So outspoken Christians are viscous?

Woop woop woop, agenda detected.

Seth McFarlane is juvenile and definitely not for everyone but for what he does, he is a master.

shouldn't of

:mob:

Everyone in Cleveland speaks that way, you missed the meta.  :evil:

I also think its funny that people like to take shots at Seth MacFarlane because he understands what's low-brow random funny. He's also a master of comedic dialogue timing.

I still can't figure out WTF is supposed to be funny about American Dad.

The Show is Fucking Awful.

You're up in arms about "of" vs have, yet "viscous" Christians slips through your fingers?

This. I have never found it funny, and can't understand how it's still around.

Amid the rise and success of hit TV shows such as “Family Guy” and “American Dad,” animator-turned Hollywood powerhouse Seth MacFarlane has been dogged with accusations of joke-stealing and lack of originality in his work.

Now, cartoonists are pointing out the similarities between his new motion picture “Ted” and popular comic strip “Imagine This.” The strip, created in 2008 by cartoonist Lucas Turnbloom and syndicated by Universal Uclick, centers around a slacker and his foul-mouthed teddy bear sidekick who drinks beer and has anger issues.

“Certainly, the idea of someone talking to a stuffed animal isn’t new,” said Tom Racine, host of Tall Tale Radio, a popular podcast about comics, animation, and movies. “But ‘Ted’ feels like it was just taken directly from ‘Imagine This’ with little or no attempt to change it.”

Racine created a shot-by-shot graphic pairing panels from “Imagine This” and screenshots from “Ted.” In one, both Ted and Turnbloom’s bear character Clovis are leaning back while drinking a beer. In another, both sets of characters sit lazily on the couch eating cereal.

American Dad is indeed awful.

And McFarlane already is kind of pariah in cartoonist circles:

I liked it for the first two seasons or so.  Then it just started getting really strange and odd without really going anywhere (kind of like Family Guy!).  Almost like he was going to put a good deal of effort into the show at first, but then he got Family Guy back so now it's kind of in "well I get paid for it, might as well see what off the wall shit story lines I can throw at audiences and still get paid for it!" mode.

I still record the shows and watch them, but usually 3-4 months after they air while I'm doing something else and just happen to have the TV on.  I haven't honestly seen very many episodes of his shows in the last 2 seasons that they've been on that made me feel glad I caught them.

Cleveland show falls over because none of the kids are actually funny.

You're up in arms about "of" vs have, yet "viscous" Christians slips through your fingers?