Ted Lasso has returned to spread some holiday cheer.
Apple’s Emmy-winning comedy series has released a brand-new, holiday-themed short that builds upon the stop-motion animated opening credits featured in season two’s beloved Christmas episode.
The four-minute short features the cast — Jason Sudeikis (Ted), Hannah Waddingham (Rebecca), Brendan Hunt (Coach Beard), Jeremy Swift (Higgins), Juno Temple (Keeley), Brett Goldstein (Roy), Phil Dunster (Jamie) and Nick Mohammed (Nate) — reprising their roles in Claymation form. The special, like the series itself, features Ted, in his own way, delivering an important message about the holidays.
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The short, titled Ted Lasso: The Missing Christmas Mustache, features Ted searching for a lost item that ultimately leads him to realize the meaning of the holiday season. (Apple declined to provide credits for writing the short and the animation work.)
Ted Lasso co-creator Bill Lawrence, in an October interview with The Hollywood Reporter podcast TV’s Top 5, expressed optimism that there would be more to come after the Claymation opening credits that were featured in the Aug. 13 episode, “Carol of the Bells.” “It’d be cool if we had a Claymation Christmas special,” he joked, noting that he would have preferred to hold the holiday episode from season two to drop as an “extra episode” after the season ended.
Lawrence and company are currently writing season three of the comedy, which recently was named an AFI Television Program of the Year. Production is expected to begin early next year for a summer 2022 debut. The cast and writers of Ted Lasso recently secured sizable salary increases for season three, as producers Warner Bros. TV and Apple TV+ are also negotiating linear rights to the comedy. As for if the show goes on beyond season three, that remains up to its Emmy-winning star, co-creator and head writer, Sudeikis.
Watch the holiday short, below. And hear more from Lawrence on the season three finale and what’s next for the beloved comedy in the TV’s Top 5 interview, also below.
