As the new season debuts on Peacock, the Globe caught up with the “Ted” cast to chat about their Masshole traits, what they miss about the ’90s, and why Bostonians may have the “worst accent in America.”
Which Boston celebrity or athlete would you want as your real-life thunder buddy?
Scott Grimes: Mike Eruzione for me. Miracle team, 1980.
Giorgia Whigham: Is Ben Affleck from Boston?
Max Burkholder: Famously, yeah.
GW: Ben Affleck.
MB: Matt Damon, let’s go.
People from Massachusetts are affectionately called Massholes and known for qualities like drinking iced coffee during blizzards and aggressive driving …
Seth MacFarlane: [laughs] Not just driving.
What would you say is your most Masshole trait?
SM: There are times when I really want to say [breaks out Boston accent], “Hey, buddy, put on a collared shirt. You know what kind of event this is?” I feel like that’s a Masshole thing, where it’s this combination of, like, you’re a little trashy, but you fancy yourself somebody who would order someone else to put on a collared shirt because it’s a certain type of event. That’s a very Boston thing.
MB: Being up in everybody else’s business and then immediately taking offense if someone else is up in your business.
GW: I’m going to piggyback off that one.
SG: But I think a true Masshole wouldn’t know. I’d have to ask you [gestures to MacFarlane], do I have a Masshole quality about me?
SM: No, you don’t, because there’s nothing confrontational about your default state. If anything, it’s the reverse. You are terrified if you think you might have displeased someone. In my time in Boston, that’s not really the baseline state that I recall.
From left: Max Burkholder as John, Ted (voiced by Seth MacFarlane), and Scott Grimes as Matty in “Ted.”Peacock
What’s the secret to pulling off a good Boston accent? And what’s your favorite word to hear or say with a Boston accent?
SG: I always loved it — the name Tina Turner is exactly the opposite with my mother. It’d be Tiner Turna.
SM: You guys have a very complicated relationship with the letter “R.” Somebody who doesn’t play fair at cards, that’s a cheet-ah. And the animal with spots, it runs really fast, that’s a cheat-er. It’s a very kind of mirror universe approach.
MB: This is like an old, maybe 10 years ago commercial, teaching Boston as a second language, that bit: “Oh you put your cah keys in your khakis.”
SM: This is gonna get me a lot of hate, but I’m from that [expletive] part of the country and my family’s full of them. We might have the worst accent in America.
I remember [expletive] up my foot when I was shooting “Ted 2.” I got out of the car wrong. I [expletive] up my ankle, like the weirdest freak thing. And I went to the doctor, and [breaks out Boston accent again] the doctah talked like this. And I was like, “Are you really a doctor? You’re not a doctor.” There’s just no way to make it sound anything other than what it is. But we love them nonetheless.
Seth MacFarlane voices Ted.Peacock
What’s been your favorite reference to Boston or New England on “Ted”?
SG: My favorite, personally, is because it’s [set in] Framingham. We used to go see football games in Framingham.
MB: I think it’s in the pilot, when we’re eating the Steak-umms while we’re stoned for the first time, and Matty (Grimes) goes, “You’re acting like it’s the [expletive] daily special at Legal Sea Foods.”
Which ’90s song would you most want to perform as a duet with Ted at a karaoke night?
MB: I don’t know, dude. I was born in 1997.
SG: I also have a hard time differentiating the ’80s and ’90s.
SM: I think “Ally McBeal” covered that trope so thoroughly that I don’t know that there’s anything we could do.
SG: Was “Islands in the Stream” ’80s or ’90s?
GW: Was Green Day ’90s? Green Day was ’90s. OK, “Basket Case” by Green Day.
MB: My memories of the ’90s are largely characterized by wearing diapers, being really upset when my pacifier fell out of my mouth, stuff like that.
From left: Giorgia Whigham as Blaire, Ted (voiced by Seth MacFarlane), and Max Burkholder as John in “Ted.”Peacock
What ’90s technology or aspect of pop culture do you wish was still around?
MB: Sega Dreamcast. That’s something that was gone too soon.
SM: Physical media. I like to own music. I like to own movies. I like [expletive] Blu-rays. I don’t have to have Wi-Fi to listen to the song.
MB: And also the streaming service that owns it can’t take it away from me at the drop of a hat.
SM: Exactly. There’s a lot of stuff missing from streaming. There’s a lot of music you can’t find. So yeah, physical media.
GW: I think a zine is really cool. It’s really cool when you go into a bookstore and you just happen to see one of those.
SM: A zine? We used to call them magazines.
GW: Haven’t you heard of a zine?
MB: You don’t know what a zine is?
GW: A zine is different than a magazine. And it’s a ’90s thing.
SG: I’ve never heard the word in my life. Ever.
MB: No, she’s 100 percent right.
GW: Don’t gaslight me.
MB: A zine is something that like an individual or a smaller group of people might make rather than being this thing in large publications.
GW: It’s almost like honed in on one subject.
SM: Like a newsletter … or a pamphlet? Like Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.”
MB: Yes, exactly. You can call that a proto-zine.
“Ted” season 2 is now streaming on Peacock.
Interview was condensed and edited for clarity.
Matt Juul can be reached at [email protected].
