Seth MacFarlane‘s unsettlingly realistic portrayal of Bill Clinton in Ted season two is going viral online.
The Family Guy creator says he used AI to turn himself into the former president in his Peacock comedy series.
MacFarlane has performed Clinton’s voice many times on Fox’s animated hit Family Guy, but this time he managed to pull off an eerily accurate 1990s-era Clinton in a live-action show thanks to the new technology (see the clip below).
“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.”
The footage has really thrown some viewers, such as one who posted, “They had Bill Clinton appear in an episode, and I can’t tell if it’s a lookalike or some sort of CG or AI deepfake because he looks EXACTLY like the real thing.” Another wrote, “It’s actually insane how much Seth looks like Bill Clinton here. You could have told me they invented a time machine and kidnapped him from 1995, and I would have believed you.”
Ted is set in the 1990s. In the scene, Clinton goes on a profane rant against a donut shop employee who’s upset about his handling of the economy.
Check out the scene for yourself:
Based on the 2012 hit comedy film and its sequel, Peacock’s Ted follows 16-year-old John Bennett (Max Burkholder) — a character played by Mark Wahlberg in the film — and his foul-mouthed teddy bear.
