YMMV / Ted 1 - TV Tropes

Alternative Character Interpretation:
- During the dinner scene, was Lori really just being Innocently Insensitive when asking Tami-Lynn those offensive questions? Or did she intentionally offend her to indirectly get back at Ted for inviting those prostitutes to her apartment (and allowing one of them to poop on the floor) earlier? That said, it might be closer to the latter (possibility to drive him away while wanting to privately tear into John), considering how she's clearly tired of John spending too much time with the bear at her expense.
- Does the Jewish bully victim from John's childhood genuinely hate John as much as his attackers? Or is he only telling him to get lost to avoid an even harsher beating? Him waiting until his three attackers all voice their disdain for John does give the latter some credence.
Awesome Music: Norah Jones's "Everybody Needs a Best Friend"—written by both Walter Murphy and MacFarlane, which ended up so praised it not only went on to get a Best Original Song nomination, but also stuck around as the theme song to the spin-off series too.
Crosses the Line Twice: A few jokes, some of which had to be heavily edited even for late night TV trailers. For example, the trailer joke where Ted tries to impress a colleague by waving, blowing a kiss then humping part of the checkout actually continues further, with him mimicing fellatio on a candy bar and using hand soap to pretend he's being ejaculated on.
Do Not Do This Cool Thing: Ted insulting the store manager during a job interview is supposed to be Played for Laughs, but even if you're a live teddy bear, doing this in real life can get you in big trouble.
Ensemble Dark Horse: The Asian man, Wan Ming, whose wall gets destroyed, is found to be hilarious by fans. Especially when Sam Jones has a hallucination where he's Ming The Merciless. It also helps that he's an Expy of Mr. Washee Washee since both characters share the same actor.
Faux Symbolism: One of the major themes of the movie is about John's difficulty growing up, but name a young child who has not lived through the trauma of a beloved toy being destroyed or lost while a desperate parent tries to fix it, and comfort them when they can't. To many younger children the toy really is something more than just a toy and is a true friend and companion.
Genius Bonus: Ted's response to Lori's hysteria about a shit being on the floor is, "Or, or....is the floor...on the shit? Is what Kierkegaard would say."
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Ted proved to be a massive hit in Japan, as the film spent four straight weeks as the #1 movie and eventually earned $44 million there. He also has over 200k likes on his official Japanese Facebook page. In fact, Japan was the film's third highest grossing market, behind North America, where it made $218.8 million, and the UK, where it made $48.9 million. He's even getting a figma! The film is so popular in Japan that there's actually a Ted-themed café over in Tokyo. The film even managed to have a crossover promotion with Danganronpa: The Animation of all things.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- Ted comments on being a former child star, and being washed up like the cast of Diff'rent Strokes. While death is inevitable, Conrad Bain died less than a year after Ted was released and Todd Bridges is the only main actor still living.
- Due to Mila Kunis being unable to return for the sequel, with the reveal that John and Lori ended up divorced because "she was trying to change him" and John realized he wasn't himself anymore with her, it puts what's likely an unintended negative spin on their very loving and happy relationship in this film that instead paints Lori as being both less sympathetic and more unreasonable—or at least gives the impression that maybe John only thought he was happy with Lori rather than naturally adapting as an adult.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Is this Green Lantern (2011) the first or second one to be outed as gay? We're not sure anymore.
- The fact that Robert becomes Taylor Lautner is even funnier when you know what this actor was up to in the past few years, and who he shares scenes with... A Robert Pattinson who would have been a much more believable joke.
- Ted briefly posing as an animatronic mascot at a restaurant and then jumpscaring a kid who comes to check him out. Looks like he got a little quirky...
- Ted once said he could totally be a lawyer. In the sequel, he becomes involved in the legal department.
- When John's parents first see Ted alive, John's mother says that Ted's existence is "just like the baby Jesus". The sixth episode of the prequel series revolves around John and Ted theorizing that Ted may, in fact, be Jesus.
- John wishing that Ted was alive is a given for the film's premise, but 12 years later, it happened again in an episode of Family Guy, where Stewie makes his teddy bear Rupert come to life.
Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Even though Donny is a creepy Psychopathic Manchild whose charges get dropped after being arrested, he is an entertaining Love to Hate character because of how funny he is, such as his dancing, and the reason he kidnapped Ted was because he wanted his son, Robert, to have something he never had. Rex, on the other hand, is a narcissistic asshole who constantly shows off his wealth and his picture of him at the high school swim team and lusts over his female employees, including Lori, despite her making it very clear that she is already in a relationship. To add salt to the wound, when John leaves his party to go to Ted's, he says that he will have sex with her, and tries to get back with her after she and John break up. While his death from Lou Gehrig's disease is tragic, it was completely deserved.
Memetic Mutation:
- The Thunder Buddies song.
- The scene where Ted poses as an animatronic mascot and scares a kid is commonly used in Five Nights at Freddy's memes.
Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: While the film and its sequel poke fun at life in Massachusetts, a lot of people from Massachusetts love the movies.
Nausea Fuel: One of the prostitutes defecating on the floor. Thankfully, it was off-screen, but the shit is still seen.
Nightmare Fuel:
- After Ted is kidnapped by Donny and his son, when Ted sees a room filled with many pictures of himself on Donny's wall, one can't help but think that it may be disturbing in a way.
  - Donny and Robert in general are pretty scary. Yeah, they come across as comedic due to the movie they're in, but they'd be pretty believable as horror film villains with minimal changes. For example, the scene where Donny dances while Ted tries to sneak out was comical, but it could have just as easily been in a horror film as is (think Buffalo Bill dancing to "Goodbye Horses"). Also present is Robert giving Ted an "ouch" by ripping his ear off. Thankfully, it is easily undone, but replace "talking stuffed bear" with "human being." Yeah...
  - It gets even worse in the extended edition, as while he's running from Donny, Ted runs to the basement and accidentally trips and falls down to the bottom of the stairs, where he comes face to face with the remains of dozens of other teddy bears that have been ripped apart, stabbed, dismembered, and chopped into pieces. Ted can only scream in absolute horror. It's only scary because he's a stuffed animal himself. For a human, it'd be like finding the mutilated corpses of a serial killer's previous victims.
- Seeing Ted getting ripped in half and nearly dying during the climax. Granted, he comes back to life, but still.
One-Scene Wonder: Ted's Asian neighbor, Wan Ming, is only seen at Ted's party with Sam Jones where he confronts the latter for punching a hole through his wall. He may seem like an Asian Rudeness, but we can't help but find him hilarious with how he speaks broken English and how Sam Jones gets into a fight with him when he's hallucinated as Ming the Merciless.
Protagonist Title Fallacy: Ted is not the main character. John is. Ted is the deuteragonist. He is, however, the protagonist of the sequel.
Serial Numbers Filed Off:
- With Charlie the Abusive Teddy Bear. So much so that Seth MacFarlane was sued for it, though the case was ultimately dismissed with the plantiffs conceding that MacFarlane developed it independently of their work.
- Plotwise, the film is a near shot-for-shot remake of Angels in the Outfield (1994), and here's 24 reasons why.
Squick:
- Lori picking up the prostitute's poop on the floor. And accidentally touching some of it. Remember that the latter probably also had an STI or two.
- The scene where Ted accidentally stabs a man's hand with a knife at the party. A deep wound like that would cause both paralysis and chronic pain.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: One flaw of this movie is that Lori's problems aren't as properly explored as those of John and Ted. There was room to address that, where, after the breakup, Lori finds John walking home alone and invites him into her car. But when she tries to explain her true feelings, presumably about their relationship and Ted, she's interrupted by the kidnapped toy's phone call. As a result, she ends up looking rather underdeveloped to the point where her happy marriage with John feels like an Ass Pull at best, considering how it's their lingering personality flaws leading to their divorce in the sequel.
Tough Act to Follow: The film was such a hit that MacFarlane's later film A Million Ways to Die in the West just couldn't meet viewer expectations. Ted 2 also didn't do too well at the box office.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
- Ted. We are supposed to feel bad when John dumps him, but seeing how he turns John into a loser, it feels deserved. He does realize the error of his enabling, and eventually owns up to it, however.
- However, John is shown to be just as guilty, since while he's right that Ted is partially to blame for his break-up with Lori due to his enabler tendencies, he himself never accepts that it was mainly his fault, as at the end of the day, John is the one choosing to be lazy and irresponsible. This is made even worse during his and Ted's argument since Ted actually swallows his pride and accepts his portion of the blame and tells John the fact that he can't do the same is the main reason that Lori dumped him.
Visual Effects of Awesome: Think about it. This is a movie that has a grown man engaging in a brutal fight with a teddy bear... and pulls it off. Especially considering the fight scene isn't played for laughs.
- In general, the CGI on Ted himself is pretty awesome, since it actually looks like a real teddy bear.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?:
- Similar to Seth's other works, it looks colorful and cutesy, but once you hear the dialogue.... In his review, Roger Ebert advised parents that if their kids want to see the movie because of the ads, don't take them (he specifically recommended Brave as an alternative).
- Taken to the extreme by a Brazilian deputy / moral guardian who tried to upgrade the film's rating there for "offensive content using childish elements", when the rating was already "inappropriate for under 16 years". And the deputy brought his 11-year old son to watch it. The Ministry of Justice shot down his request, and the film topped the box office afterwards.

YMMV / Ted 1 5 Following

Ted 1

5 Following