Father Ted Crilly stated, "It's nice to think of them all in the house having adventures, but when you think about it, it's really cruel to Ted. It's just an awful future for him... He's not watching a sitcom, he's living this awful life." "The Independent" characterised Ted as "by turns devious, cunning and disingenuous", noting a running joke about parish funds being traced to Ted's personal account. Ardal O'Hanlon, who played Father Dougal, said that Ted was the show's only rounded, fully formed character, and that the rest of the cast were essentially playing caricatures. Ted is frequently portrayed as a natural
Father Ted Crilly pleased when Ted produced a portable confessional and proceeded to talk about it. On one occasion at The Purty Loft in Dún Laoghaire, he sang "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off". Later, Mathews and Woodfull included the character in "The Starship Róisín", a short-lived science fiction comedy radio series they wrote for "The Ian Dempsey Show" on RTÉ Radio. An Irish parody of "Star Trek", it followed the adventures of Captain Bono (played by Woodful, based on the singer Bono), his Vulcan sidekick Stephen "Spock" Roche (played by Mathews, based on cyclist Stephen Roche, with a "cold, cycling