Seth MacFarlane’s feature-film directing debut mines two of his favorite devices: anthropomorphism and ’80s pop culture. In Family Guy we got a talking dog; in American Dad, a talking fish (and an alien); in The Cleveland Show, a family of talking bears. Now, in Ted, we get another talking bear. It goes without saying that MacFarlane voices all of them, blending outsider commentary with the tics of whatever creature’s spouting it. And as for the ’80s pop-culture references, well, MacFarlane’s spent nearly two decades mocking one.

Ted’s ostensibly a coming-of-age story about 30-something John Bennett’s (Mark Wahlberg) choice between a normal, adult life with his girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) and his pot-smoking, hard-drinking state of arrested development, represented and enabled by his talking teddy bear. However, maybe because it’s a comedy or whether it’s MacFarlane’s ego, the film has no interest whatsoever in its human characters .

So much so that two of the three main subplots — Ted getting a job at the local supermarket and Ted getting stalked by a deranged fan (Giovanni Ribisi) revolve, naturally, around Ted. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because every time the scene shifts from Ted to Wahlberg and Kunis, it’s like a symphony of chalkboard scrapers and wailing cats led by Dully McMyBrainIsOnFire.

Back in 2004, fans were introduced for the first time to the animated world of Drawn Together. What started off as an animated spoof on subjects ranging from Josie and the Pussycats to Big Brother later turned into an out of control thrill ride of raunchiness and comedy, some of which would even make the writers on South Park blush.

Sadly, the vulgarity and hilarity wasn’t enough to sustain Comedy Central’s expectations, and the show was canceled in 2008. Luckily, the sales of the DVD and internet buzz kept the show alive just enough for the network to offer creators Matt Silverstein and Dan Jeser a direct-to-DVD feature, which hits shelves today.

We were lucky enough to sit down with Matt and Dave to discuss the fall of Drawn Together and what the sales on The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie could mean for the future of the franchise.

The Flickcast: Before we get started, I wanted to let you guys know how much we dug the DVD around The Flickcast office. It was exactly what we were looking for as fans of the series. We were in stitches.