Ted Season 2 was nearly canceled for a surprising reason

Ted Season 2 is in the works at Peacock, but despite the show’s high viewership, it was facing cancelation for an unexpected reason.

In 2012, Seth Macfarlane made his directorial debut with Ted, a buddy comedy following Mark Wahlberg’s pot-smoking slacker and his best friend: a talking teddy bear.

It was an extraordinary success: well-reviewed and one of the highest-grossing movies of the year with nearly $550 million worldwide. Sequel Ted 2 was a bit disappointing, but it was still a commercial hit.

Earlier this year, Ted returned in a prequel TV series exploring his early years with John Bennett (played by Max Burkholder), with all the high school hijinks you’d expect (buying weed, trying to sneak adult movies out of the video store, and losing their virginity).

Peacock

It echoed its predecessors’ performance, becoming Peacock’s most-watched original title ever and earning a 73% Rotten Tomatoes score. A second season was quickly green-lit, but there was a small problem.

According to Puck News, Ted Season 2 was nearly canceled because its budget is so big – $8 million an episode, to be exact.

Why does it cost so much, I hear you ask? This isn’t an insult to the show, but its visuals aren’t exactly breathtaking, nor has it tapped much in the way of heavyweight Hollywood talent.

The answer is simple: maintaining the CGI on Ted demands an “outrageous” budget, in the words of MacFarlane himself.

“Universal actually proposed the idea to me of doing a Ted series. I hadn’t really thought about going back to that character until they mentioned it, and I said, ‘Really? Isn’t that outrageously expensive?’ They stayed true to their word and did not compromise the quality,” he explained to The Hollywood Reporter.

“We’ve seen many motion pictures in which the main character is entirely computer-generated and done so at a feature-quality level, but we’ve never really seen that on television… so there was a lot about doing it for television that just seemed like we were, by nature, treading into uncharted territory.”

Don’t worry, though, because not only is Ted returning for Season 2, but an animated “companion” series is said to be in the works.

In the meantime, check out other TV shows streaming this month and binge-worthy TV shows to add to your watch list.