I’ve seen a lot of debate over Ted showrunner Seth MacFarlane’s creepy turn as Bill Clinton in this second season. In a clip that’s been widely posted, MacFarlane appears as Clinton in a scene visiting the Dunkin Donuts where dad character Matty works. Matty tries to heckle Clinton and gets owned by a smack-talking Clinton. McFarlane has got Bill’s voice down and he’s previously done his Clinton impression for Family Guy. He doesn’t look much like Clinton so instead of hiring an impersonator or using CGI and/or prosthetics to become the 42nd president, MacFarlane just used AI. He told the Associated Press that CGI and prosthetics looked too “terrifying.” Watching the clip (it’s below) it’s hard to believe that it looked creepier than the final result. MacFarlane also reasoned that “it was the only way to look like Bill Clinton.” Here’s what he told the AP, thanks to The Hollywood Reporter for transcribing it.

“I’ve been doing my Bill Clinton impression since the early days of Family Guy,” MacFarlane told the Associated Press. “It’s an interesting example of how AI can be used as a tool and not necessarily trample on the art that the rest of the industry is doing. We tried prosthetics, we tried traditional CGI, and everything just looked terrifying. So we just said, ‘To hell with it, let’s try AI.’ It worked. It was the only way to look like Bill Clinton.”

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

THR goes on to quote someone who says MacFarlane looks exactly like Clinton, which is superficially true when you watch the low res version. He looks more like a wax figure of Clinton coming to life than an actual person. The microexpressions in his face are missing. You can see a clearer clip in the TV Line interview below and the tweet just has the clip extracted. (The tweet has all the swear words just FYI if you’re watching around kids.) In MacFarlane’s TV Line interview, he said “we didn’t want people focused on knowing that this was visual effect, we just wanted them to think this was Clinton.” I think they failed in that. He also called it a “tool” and reasoned to the AP that it doesn’t take over “the art that the rest of the industry is doing.” Is that true though? I am honestly asking. I’m trying to keep an open mind about AI, and I was almost convinced by Ben Affleck’s out-of-left-field announcement that he built a whole ass AI studio he just sold to Netflix. Sure AI can take over small tasks and industries need to incorporate the technology. Too often we’ve seen them use it to try to replace far superior human work. The results are typically creepy and inaccurate, just like this weird clip they’re trying to convince us looks like a real person. We’ve also seen CEOs and bosses so convinced AI works that they’re passing off obvious downgrades as innovative breakthroughs.

MacFarlane is interviewed in the first two minutes in this TV Line video. You can see the clip here with the swear words beeped out.

Seth MacFarlane says they used AI to make him look like Bill Clinton in 'Ted' S2

"It's an interesting example of how AI can be used as a tool … We tried prosthetics, we tried traditional CGI, everything else just looked terrifying"

(via @AP) pic.twitter.com/lbjY50vMcr

— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) March 6, 2026

photos are screenshots from YouTube and credit: Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon.red