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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 08/04/2012 : 12:08:36
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Hands up if you're a fan of Family Guy and American Dad. Yup, I admit it: meeeeeeeee!
With these brief animated episodes that tell it like it is, instead of what it should be in some unrealistic and fairly unimaginative never-never-land ... Seth MacFarlane and team have landed on the block hitherto dominated by South Park. Not that I don't still love SP, too!
So when Seth & Co. got it together for a live action feature based on the same premise that elevated their animated series to such subversive heights, it should have been easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. Right?
Let's put the conceit into a pop culture context. I could be wrong, but I don't believe there was a television premise before Mork and Mindy which extended so entertainingly the metaphor of the cuckoo in the nest. Of course, it didn't hurt that Robin Williams was the alien.
There there was Harry and the Hendersons, featuring a Yeti; Alf, another alien; and Wilfred - not just a talking dog, but a grown man in a cheesy dog suit whom everyone else sees as a real dog, except Elijah Wood. He and the dog bond in a Bromance kind of way, the dog providing life-coaching for the depressed Wood.
So here comes Family Guy, purportedly promoting "good old-fashioned family values" - which is one of the lines in the opening theme tune. And here's the family: Chubby dad Peter with even more of a moral gap than Homer Simpson, though a tad more cunning; his wife, Lois, who's likely to encourage him, especially when she can benefit, and who's got an unexpected nasty streak [sort of on the level of the 3 Stooges] or Oliver Hardy; three children - Chris, a fat-prone teen version of dad, but more simple-minded, possibly because he's obsessed with sex which has as yet eluded him; Meg, somewhat naive but more intelligent than her parents and the butt of their family jokes; and baby Stewie - a rootin, tootin, talking baby with an unexplained upper-class English accent and more intelligent than them all - except of course, he's a baby, so his experiences are somewhat limited. And what family would be complete without a dog. In this case Brian, a talking dog. A highly intelligent talking dog, ally of Stewie, yet still loyal, evoking a Wallace & Gromit relationship.
Then the MacFarlane team devised American Dad. The set up is pretty much the same. This time Dad Stan is a CIA operative married to long-suffering Francine - whose adoptive parents are Chinese, and whose rich birth parents couldn't care less about her. Their daughter Hayley's a bored and occasionally inspired teen who rebels against her dad's unquestioned values in various ways, and Steve, the kind of mischievous kid who probably took as his role model that boy who lived next door to Andy in Toy Story. Instead of a pet dog, they have an unnervingly verbal goldfish called Klaus who speaks in a German accent and is rumoured to be the brain of an East German Olympic skier transplanted into a fish's body. Instead of a baby, the family have embraced an alien called Roger. He was rescued by Stan on a secret op, and is one of the most endearing and surprising characters ever invented. Really.
It's important to understand that no one in either of these shows ever questions that any of the non-human characters can speak. And nearly every character including all the people peppers their speech with ... oooh, cover your ears kids - bad language. Guess whose definition of bad is the benchmark? Anyone for teabag?
So, there's a paradigm for MacFarlanery. Middle-America as a target, and a deceptive patina of nice and normal. Guess whose definition of normal is the benchmark? The name of MacF's game has always been subversion.
Ted isn't animated, and the premise is simple, depending on your willingness to suspend disbelief. Because, as a result of some glitch in magicland, a kid's wish to bring his teddy bear to life actually comes true. [I'm assuming it's a glitch, since no one else in MacF's universe seems to share this experience.]
As the kid, John [played very creditably by Mark Wahlberg] grows up, so does Ted. They're "thunder buddies" for life. Because they were and still are both shit-scared of thunder. But that doesn't stop them getting into sex, and nasty sex, and downright dirty sex. Something of a feat, as Ted himself points out, for a stuffed bear without a penis.
The premise of the film reveals that stage of a relationship - in this case after four years of what American quaintly call dating - that the woman - in this case Mila Kunis - might be looking for something approaching commitment in the longer term.
Mila, btw, as well as many, many even bigger stars, have had cameo or in her case, running roles in FamGuy and AmDad. So she's got no problem convincingly portraying a woman accepting of her bf's foul-mouthed talking teddy. Turns out, she can cuss with the best, herself.
But crunch point for the trio comes with an either it's him or me moment. The resolution of which I certainly ain't gonna spoil for you.
So, yeah, the film works, and sometimes hilariously well, on that level. And, I understand, has been scoring bigtime at the b.o. - though probably more successfully in America than other "territories", as the movie moguls call the rest of the world.
Like the two animated series, it's full of in-jokes, some of which are laugh-out-loud funny. Really.
I just wish MacF could have managed to squeeze in something more characteristically subversive, given that it runs for 106 minutes.
Ain't it strange that the kind of families portrayed in his animated series could never have gotten airtime in the 1950's they try to evoke. But movies have always been able to cross those mean streets. Today, Hollywood has a different manual.
Sorry to ramble - but I do like contextualization.
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 08/04/2012 15:40:27 |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 01/18/2013 : 09:45:27
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| I thought it was one gag, executed rather well, and despite MacFarlane -- one of the most talented guys out there -- not without a heavy dose of schmaltz. If you think a potty-mouthed teddy bear is funny, this is for you. But that's all this picture's got. And here I have Baffy's PARANORMAN beef, a deadly one for comedy: it felt long. |
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Ted - and how he was evolved
