The crowd at SXSW was treated to two surprises from "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane on Sunday: a sneek peek of the beginning of his anticipated film "Ted" and a special guest.

There was a full house for "A Conversation with Seth MacFarlane" where the animator and actor spoke on everything from the near-demise of "Family Guy" to his jazz album and his new film "Ted," a live-action/CGI movie starring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis.

Looking back on it now, Fox yanking "Family Guy" not long after it debuted turned out to be a blessing in disguise. In fact, MacFarlane said "the cancellation was the best thing that happened to the show.""You can write endless fan letters, you can try to bring back 'Party of Five' all you want, but if the dollar signs aren't there you are screwed," he said. "This was literally a case where people were writing letters with their checkbooks by buying the DVDs and Fox said 'Ok, there's money to be made here.'"

After showing a brief clip from a featurette about his Grammy-nominated jazz album "Music is Better Than Words" and discussing his upcoming reboot of "The Flintstones" (he said he's still working on the script), MacFarlane debuted the first eight minutes of "Ted" which follows the adventures of Wahlberg's character and the foul-mouthed teddy bear who is his childhood friend.

"It's really a love triangle between Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis and a bear," he said as the audience laughed.

MacFarlane further thrilled the audience when he brought Wahlberg out as his special guest. Wahlberg said he was excited to work with the mind behind "American Dad" and "The Cleveland Show."

"He and I have the same agent," Wahlberg explained. "I read the script and 10 pages in you forget it's a bear."