Raise you’re hand if you’ve seen enough Family Guy to be able to give a run down of pretty much every episode. Now put your hands down. Y’all look ridiculous. I can’t see you and the people who can don’t know why your hand just shot up. They probably think you’re crazy, and I would refute them, but you did just obey something you read on the internet so…
Getting back into it, I was among those with their theoretical hand raised. A Family Guy episode usually begins one way before radically shifting direction and settling into what the actual plot is going to be, is filled with cut-a-way gags and ’80s and ’90s pop culture references, allows Seth MacFarlane to indulge in his proclivities, and has some incredibly base-line humor. Throw in some one the nose political stuff and one or two jokes that go on for too long, and there you have it my friends: an episode of Family Guy. I’ve personally been worn down by this formula over the years, so I don’t enjoy the show as much as I did when it first came out (yeah, that’s right, I remember watching Family Guy when it first came out! Hipster cred 4 lyfe!), but if you still dig it, then good for you.
I also have good news for those people! Ted 2 is essentially a feature length Family Guy episode. All the elements to the equation are there. It starts with Ted (MacFarlane) getting married to Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth) and then see that marriage immediately begin to fall apart, the decide to have a baby, go through some twists and turns, all of which leads to Ted having to fight a legal battle to prove his person-hood. The marital trouble never really come up again, so that qualifies as the unconnected beginning. Ted’s fight is compared to that of African-Americans and homosexuals, so there’s the political stuff. There are actual cut-a-ways, and while there are a lot of references throughout, the climax of the movie takes place at New York Comic Con, allowing MacFarlane to just jam in as much nerd bullshit as he can in a single frame.
Yet again, I’m not here to say that any of this is bad. There is some genuinely funny bits here and I did laugh quite a bit. But for every good joke, there’s Liam Neeson showing up out of no where for a scene that would feel more appropriate in Family Guy, and one gag which, I have on good authority, is lifted straight from the show! So much of the movie is just tired and over done. There’s a Google joke that goes on for too long, as well as a weed fetishization that would have felt a lot fresher a decade or so ago.
It gets back to that idea of base-line humor. No one seems to be trying all that hard. The jokes are right there on the surface and nothing is goes deeper. You may say, “it’s a stupid comedy, I don’t want or need it to go deeper,” and that’s fine. That’s why I’m saying its a perfect episode of Family Guy and will appeal to those fans. This is a movie that will be watched, digested, and promptly forgotten. There is nothing in it that will resonate for years to come and future generations will be left with odd folktales of when their grandparents paid $10 to see a former ’90s rapper get high with an animated teddy bear. This is the legacy Ted 2 will leave behind, and I think that is entirely appropriate.
P.S. This is the second Mark Whalberg movie I’ve watched for this site, and both of them (Trans4mers and Ted 2) has MASSIVE Bud Light product placement in them. Is this a coincidence or does Whalberg have some sort of brand deal with Bud? I really want to know, because its not simple things like, “oh, this is just what we’re drinking at dinner.” Its more, “WE’RE GOING TO COREOGRAPH WHOLE FIGHT SCENES AROUND THIS PRODUCT! WOO BUD LIGHT!” Its interesting, is what I’m saying.
