Ted Season 2 Exclusive: Go Behind the Scenes of the Special Dungeons & Dragons Episode

Warning: This nonfiction includes spoilers and details astir Ted Season 2.

Ted is backmost connected Peacock, and for Season 2 it's bringing a small spot of magic on for the ride. In Episode 3, "Dealers & Dragons", Ted and John are drawn into a crippled of Dungeons & Dragons. Prepare to spot a precise antithetic mounting for the show, a cameo from the satellite of tabletop gaming and a genuinely unthinkable country involving Ted and a notation to the movie Philadelphia.

The Ted and phantasy universes mightiness not marque for the astir evident crossover, but arsenic IGN discovered erstwhile it visited the acceptable of the Dungeons & Dragons episode, a immense magnitude of enactment went into making definite this was a existent tribute to the iconic tabletop game. (Look for our afloat video study from the acceptable of "Dealers & Dragons" this Monday, March 9th.)

Don't worry, this isn't astir to get Stranger Things traumatic; Ted is inactive precise overmuch the foul-mouthed fluffball we cognize and love, adjacent erstwhile he's transported to a satellite of wizards and spells. The plotline down this small jaunt into the magical realm is powered by a request for weed, alternatively than redeeming the satellite from the Abyss.

In bid to triumph their prize, John and Ted person to implicit a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Ted is the bard, John is simply a mage (or wizard, successful modern Dungeons & Dragons speak), ma Susan is simply a fighter, dada Matty is simply a cleric and Blaire is simply a thief. As anyone who has ever LARPed volition archer you, phantasy is thing without immoderate decent drip. Doing D&D close means dressing the part, and the formed explained their caller looks for this precise peculiar episode.

Casting Spells

"Something I learned, wizard robes are fucking hot. Like, warm, similar physically precise warm," said Max Burkholder, who plays John. He's a morganatic Dungeons & Dragons instrumentality and helped the remainder of the formed recognize the game's satellite and storytelling. Having gotten into it portion watching games online during the quarantine, Burkholder adjacent tried to acceptable up a one-off Dungeons & Dragons run with the cast, creating characters for them.

He talked astir the process of moving with the costume section connected his outfit. "My 1 enactment that I gave to Heather [Pain], our costume designer, astir it was I privation to person truthful galore pockets. I privation to person pockets successful the sleeves. I privation to person pockets present with small bullshit and small trinkets I've got connected my belt. A leather pouch that successful it has different leather pouch. I've got keys, a spell book.

"Everything astir excavation looks precisely similar you would deliberation a wizard should look. Except not arsenic galore stars and moons connected the cape similar Fantasia. And nary elephantine conical hat. But I've got the hood, I've got the robes, I've got the staff. It's beauteous incredible."

Meanwhile, dada Matty, played by Scott Grimes, had the cleric costume with a much antithetic focal point, seemingly wholly Ted mastermind Seth MacFarlane's idea. "I deterioration a Friar Tuck wig, which is conscionable a bald spot successful the mediate with a rim of hairsbreadth astir it," said Grimes. "We did six tests due to the fact that I didn't recognize I'm a redhead, and my tegument is very, precise pinkish and tons of antithetic colors. So the bald spot successful the mediate took 16 radical to marque it. They bring it to maine and they enactment it up against my look and I'm like, 'that's not what I look like'. But it is. It's freckled and speck[s] and small tegument crab present and worldly similar that. Oh, it's humbling."

Alanna Ubach, who plays ma Susan Bennett, got arguably the coolest makeover, with a afloat acceptable of armor. "I wanted to construe Susan into what she would ideate she would wear," said costume decorator Heather Pain. "She wears a batch of sweater vests and turtlenecks. What if we made her armor a small spot similar her sweater vest? The enactment of it with a turtleneck, but past bring in, like, this weird benignant of disco chainmail that feels much ’70s."

Of course, sometimes you person to marque sacrifices for fashion. "Susan is blessed to beryllium Susan the destroyer. And she's successful this benignant of Joan of Arc-esque armor," said Ubach. "The armor is truthful dense and truthful constricting that I request assistance going to the bathroom, and I'll permission it astatine that. Wardrobe had to travel maine to the bath truthful that I tin instrumentality disconnected my skirt and my sword and my 700 belts and my tampon [a cardinal prop from the episode] and manus it to them, and past I tin spell pee."

Down and Dirty

One of the biggest changes for viewers and the radical moving down the scenes is that astir of the enactment doesn't instrumentality spot successful a chamber oregon a schoolhouse hallway – instead, it takes spot successful a phantasy land. One the acceptable designers built. In fact, the instauration of the classical phantasy scenery required 25,000 pounds of ungraded to beryllium flown in.

"They triple refined it. They similar sieved done 3 things. They had similar an biology pathogen breakdown study for each the dirt," said Burkholder. Unfortunately that ungraded did see a stowaway cricket, and a noisy 1 astatine that.

"We had to redo that country astir 3 oregon 4 times. I was like, where's the damn cricket?" said Ubach.

Expect forests, ominous chambers afloat of spikes, and of people a tavern, which I'm beauteous definite has to beryllium included successful immoderate phantasy communicative by law. One country sees the set of adventurers solving a riddle portion surrounded by 4 statues. If you deliberation the statues look lifelike, it's due to the fact that they're really dancers brought successful to play the parts. The dancers wore stiff, plastered costumes and couldn't move, perceive oregon spot what was going connected astir them.

"Everytime we walked into the country I conscionable thought that determination were 4 statues successful there, and past they would commencement moving and I'd beryllium like, 'oh, I conjecture they got moving statues.' And past I would retrieve that they were 4 dancers doing an unthinkable occupation for me," said Burkholder.

From School Days to Screen

The writers made the precise astute prime not to walk the occurrence dealing with the D&D algebra that is creating a quality sheet, oregon endless dice rolls. It skips the mechanics to get consecutive to the fantasy, without sacrificing authenticity. One of the radical making that hap was writer Chelsea Davison, who played the crippled successful precocious schoolhouse and brought her afloat nerd powers to recreating the crippled for the show.

"As a precocious schoolhouse student, I played a batch of Dungeons & Dragons, and that was a immense portion of my adolescence. That was thing that Seth had ne'er played, but helium knew however passionate fans of D&D are," explained Davison. "He was like, 'okay, well, it doesn't marque sense, successful that Ted and John were a small excessively cool. They wouldn't conscionable beryllium playing this. They don't person a run going. They can't perpetrate to anything. But what if there's a mode to get them hooked into a crippled for 1 episode?'"

MacFarlane really had Davison pb a crippled of Dungeons & Dragons for the writers room. "Which was brainsick due to the fact that I've lone ever played with, like, 5 players, erstwhile I've been a DM, a dungeon master, and this was a country of 12 people," said Davison.

"It was conscionable chaos. Mostly radical who had ne'er played earlier successful their lives. And we created characters, played the full game. I mean, it was acheronian by the clip we finished, but truthful galore of those things, similar the riddle from the episode, is the riddle I utilized successful the country with them that I wrote for that campaign."

"We privation this to beryllium truly authentic to this instrumentality base.“

If there's inactive lingering doubt, Dungeons & Dragons nerds volition cognize they're successful bully hands the infinitesimal they spot a acquainted look - Brennan Lee Mulligan - playing the relation of dungeon master. He's champion known for his enactment connected Dropout (formerly CollegeHumor) and created the fashionable Dimension 20 bid show, wherever helium and a squad play done antithetic campaigns.

"Brennan and I are friends from UCB, successful New York," said Davison. "And I'd watched his meteoric emergence done Dimension 20 and, erstwhile we were penning this publication and I was penning this quality of the Dungeon Master, this was thing that I said to Aimee [Carlson, enforcement producer] and others, that successful a cleanable satellite it would beryllium Brennan. He would beryllium truthful great. Luckily, the stars aligned and it worked out."

You'll beryllium capable to spot the occurrence for yourself from today, but the acceptable sojourn and an aboriginal preview of the occurrence shows that each the effort the formed and unit enactment into making this peculiar occurrence hap was worthy it.

"It is truthful big," said Davison. "It is simply a immense undertaking. And, you know, I deliberation Seth was truly passionate that if we're going to bash it, let's bash it 100 percent. We don't privation to person them beryllium playing immoderate knockoff fairies and whatever. We privation this to beryllium truly authentic to this instrumentality base, truthful we ended up redeeming this occurrence for Season 2. I'm truthful gladsome Season 2 happened truthful that we got to bring this each to life."

All episodes of Ted Season 2, including "Dealers & Dragons," are disposable connected Peacock now. Be definite to work our Ted Season 2 review.