Seth MacFarlane is known for his irreverent animated sitcoms - Family Guy, The Cleveland Show, American Dad - which, in and of themselves, have created a love/hate divide amongst audiences. Hence why there is going to be a lot of curiosity surrounding MacFarlane's feature film debut, Ted, the coming of age tale of a man (Mark Wahlberg) and his foul-mouthed teddy bear friend (voice of MacFarlane).

Today we have the red-band trailer for Ted to share, and it pretty much looks like a movie version of MacFarlane's animated shows, mixing live actors with the eponymous CGI talking teddy bear.

Check out the red-band trailer, images and a poster for Ted:

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The problem with this film is in the character of Ted himself - specifically the decision to have MacFarlane voice the character. Granted, MacFarlane has proven to be a versatile performer - stand-up comedy, singing, voice acting several characters on his shows - but in the hands of another performer, the character of Ted may have been brought to life on its own terms. As it stands now, Ted sounds like a composite of Peter, Brian and Stewie Griffin on Family Guy (all of whom are voiced by MacFarlane), and that is just very distracting.

Compounding the problem is the fact that this concept has been done before, several times. In a lot of ways Ted looks like a cruder version of Drop Dead Fred, only with the comedic stylings as any (or all) of MacFarlane's animated shows. In faux mathematical terms, it means this movie is doubly derivative - and leading actors Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis are definitely hit or miss when it comes to comedy. A lot of this movie's success will likely depend on the level of devotion that MacFarlane can muster from his fan base. What that level is, is anyone's guess...

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Ted-movie-poster (2012)

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Ted will be in theaters on July 13, 2012. What impression did you get from that trailer?

Source: Universal