Spoilers for Season 1 of Bad Monkey are ahead! If you aren’t caught up, you can stream the series with an Apple TV+ subscription. Then, make sure to catch the finale when it drops on the 2024 TV schedule next Wednesday, October 9.
In the book-to-screen adaptation of Carl Hiaasen’s Bad Monkey, it was important to make Florida a character. So important, in fact, that the author wanted to make sure Bill Lawrence’s show was shot in his home state. Well, that’s exactly what the showrunner did, and with it came some “bananas” filming requirements and animal interruptions that influenced the show.
To Blow Up A House, The Bad Monkey Team Had To Think About The Turtles
When I spoke to Bill Lawrence about Bad Monkey, I asked him about the role Florida played in the show, because it adds so much to the story. In response, the Ted Lasso co-creator told me that because Hiaasen is a bestselling novelist, a reporter for the Miami Herald, and an “environmental crusader,” he “wouldn’t really let” them make the series unless they “shot in Florida.” So, they did, and that led to some challenges involving the wildlife in The Keys.
Lawrence explained this by using an example from Episode 8 – “The Russian Mob Is Very Active in Key West.” Notably, a house blew up during that installment, and it was a challenge to pull off in real life too, because they had a particular window where they were allowed to do it, as he told me:
And so it's like, ‘Hey, we want to blow up a house.’ And they're like, ‘Well, we'll let you do it in this 60 minutes that the turtle eggs, you know, have not been preserved yet.’ And the Key deer that really would wander around on set aren't there.
Speaking of turtles, the Scrubs creator also told me that the street lights are red in the show because if they were white, the turtles would assume they were the moon and then walk into the road, and that would be bad.
However, they were game to make their show work with these requirements, as the producer said:
So we literally would go, ‘Hey, we want to do a big action scene.’ And they would go, ‘You can only do it between like six and 6:20 on Thursday.’ It was bananas, and these animals were everywhere.
The animals certainly were everywhere, because they’re in the show too. And that’s what led to Bill Lawrence explaining an improvised moment that came out of all these precautions they had to take.
The Fun BTS Bad Monkey Story Involving Alex Moffat And A Key Deer
In Bad Monkey, former SNL star Alex Moffat plays Evan Shook, the man overseeing the big yellow house next to Vince Vaughn’s Andrew Yancy’s home. His character is confused by the red lights around the neighborhood and he is always complaining about the animals. It turns out, a real-life moment added to all that, as Lawrence explained:
One of the Key deer, which are tiny, little deer that can drink salt water are everywhere there. They look like dogs just roamed out and started eating the brush next to him, and he goes, ‘Get out of here, I'm talking.’ And the thing looked at him and just walked away. And when people watch that in the show, they're like, ‘Oh, how'd you get that deer to do that?’ I'm like, ‘We didn't. It just was.’ They're just everywhere. So anyway, it was really challenging because of how beautiful it is.
Throughout Bad Monkey, Moffat’s character is constantly at odds with Yancy and quite frankly all the wildlife that lives around his home. From raccoons to bees to deer, the guy is consistently dealing with animals in funny ways, and knowing that some of those instances weren't planned, they just happened, makes it even better.
Considering improv-king Vince Vaughn is the star of the show, it also tracks that spontaneous moments would happen with the wildlife, and I love that it impacted the show.
A lot of Bad Monkey is shot practically, for example, Zach Braff recalled just how bloody one of his scenes was, and Lawrence confirmed that that house did explode. That alone makes the show one of Apple TV+’s best, but understanding the effort that went into pulling this off while also protecting the animals makes it even better!
To see these moments Bill Lawrence broke down, you can stream Bad Monkey on Apple TV+.
