Occasionally, you scroll through social media, and some show or movie has taken over your timeline. You don’t know if it's genuine or if the algorithm nefariously working some magic to get eyes on a show. There is a chance that the hype you see is evidence of a great series that you need to watch immediately, or you end up wasting a couple of hours of your day on something that wasn't interesting or particularly entertaining.

This phenomenon has happened with Peacock's new R-rated comedy Ted. I saw the clips on X, which were pretty funny, so I decided to give in to the show having a little moment, which happens to be a prequel about a pair of movies I have never seen. It turns out that Ted is good and funny and the perfect guilty pleasure comedy.

Ted was created by Seth MacFarlane and is a prequel to the Ted films that starred Mark Wahlberg as Max Burkholder alongside MacFarlane, who voices the titular animated teddy bear. It's set in the '90s, and we are introduced to the Bennett family and Ted, an anthropomorphic teddy bear that John (Max Burkholder) wished to live with when he was a kid. It's a familiar dynamic to Macfarlane's most notable work, Family Guy, with the Bennetts being a working-class family from Boston. Each episode is a standalone story that begins and ends with some good jokes in-between.

We follow John, who has a series of raunchy coming-of-age misadventures with Ted, who is a kind of twisted Jiminy Cricket-esque figure to the boy, as they navigate all the drama and situations that adolescence and high school breed — like bullies and trying to see dirty movies. The other members of the Bennett clan include the mother, Susan (Alanna Ubach), who is a stay-at-home mom who is always amenable to her always-running hot husband, Matty (Scott Grimes), who is very conservative Vietnam vet and prone to conspiracy theories.

Their niece Blair (Giorgia Whigham), a smalrt very liberal college student, lives with them because their house is close to her university. The family dynamics create a volatile mixture of comedy. It’s very Family Guy, pairing up different members of the family on various storylines, but since these characters have a little more depth, learning about them adds to the ridiculous things that happen every episode.

Family Guy was always a nostalgic adult animated comedy. Most of its jokes pretty much reference '80s and '90s pop culture. Ted, being set in the 90s, feels more natural for Macfarlane’s interests. Everything you miss about the 90s is in this show: the clothes and movies, video stores, over-the-top bullies, the decaying idea of the nuclear family, it's all there!

Family Guy also gets the common reputation of things made in the early to mid-2000s as “They would not be able to make this today” with all of our standards and changing sensitivities as a society (Family Guy is currently in its 22nd season)). Ted is evidence that this type of comedy can be made today (If something is funny, it will always have a place in the culture when done right). It toes the line between offensive and lowkey insightful, all while being crude and raunchy as well.

The family dynamic also makes the style work better today, with political lines drawn in the family, the niece character calling out problematic ideas that the older generation perpetuates, and a wife relegated to being gentle and agreeable despite her obnoxious and dumb husband. Early in the first episode, they are having dinner, and one joke leads to another, ending up talking about how Italian Americans became accepted as white after participating in the Korean War. It’s played so seriously and does that “toeing the line” thing that you come to expect, and it’s a long, hilarious bit that sets up the family dynamic and what type of show it is going to be.

The family dynamic largely works so well due to the cast. Max Burkholder is so funny you forget he's playing a younger Mark Wahlberg, and his chemistry with the animated bear voiced by MacFarlane, who is also great, is incredible.

Several silly scenes and setups for jokes are elevated just from pure commitment to the bit, especially on the part of the parents played by Grimes and Ubach. There is a scene where Matty reveals something terrible he did in Vietnam, and it's the most ridiculous thing ever, but it's played with such seriousness and comedic know-how that it ends up being a perfect bit. Every episode has at least one set-piece joke that makes it worth watching.

The show is not for everyone. It can sometimes be juvenile, and if you are looking for some profound comedy, it's not for you. I put the show on and laughed, and that felt good. It was uncomplicated TV watching, which is something to hold onto in this day and age. It’s a guilty pleasure viewing, especially if you miss the golden age of Family Guy and need something that matches that energy with some real attention.

Did we really need to give it the Young Sheldon treatment? No, but it's here and it's pretty good.

Ted is streaming on Peacock.