Seth MacFarlane faces lawsuit over Ted

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane is being sued over claims that his movie Ted was plagiarised.

A Californian production company says the foul-mouthed, promiscuous slacker of a teddy-bear was based on its character, Charlie, that featured in a series of web shorts.

According to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles, Bengal Mangle Productions says their character, like Ted, lives in a 'human, adult world with all human friends [and] has a penchant for drinking, smoking, prostitutes, and is a generally vulgar yet humorous character.'

The writ says further similarities include the facts that Charlie 'hates vegetables, has anger-management problems, is a washed-up child star, has a penchant for drinking alcohol, drugs... and is often violent, both physically and verbally.'

Charlie featured in an online series called Acting School Academy, followed by his own series Charlie the Abusive Teddy Bear.

Ted, starring Mark Wahlberg and made in 2012, took $550 million at the box office worldwide.; while the sequel starts filming in Boston next week.

Here is Charlie:

And here is Ted:

Published: 16 Jul 2014