There are some pairings that are clearly just made for each other and that fit together as perfectly as a dovetail joint. Combinations like peanut butter and jelly. Lennon and McCartney. Apple TV+ and Bill Lawrence — the latter being the co-creator of two of Apple’s best original releases to-date (Ted Lasso and Shrinking) and who has a third star-studded comedy titled Bad Monkey debuting later this week on the iPhone maker’s streaming service.
The new show, based on Carl Hiaasen’s 2013 novel of the same name, stars Vince Vaughn as a literal Florida Man. He’s squarely in his element here, as a fast-talking protagonist named Andrew Yancy who works as a health inspector in the Florida Keys after being bounced from the Miami Police Department. “But after stumbling upon a case that begins with a human arm fished up by tourists,” Apple explains about Bad Monkey, “he realizes that if he can prove murder, he’ll be back in.
“He just needs to get past a trove of Floridian oddballs and one bad monkey.”
Apple TV+ has released a sneak peek clip from the 10-episode Bad Monkey, which you can check out below, ahead of the show’s debut on Aug. 14 (which is when the first two episodes will premiere, followed by one episode each week thereafter). In addition to Vaughn, the Bad Monkey cast also includes Rob Delaney, Michelle Monaghan, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Zach Braff — as well as Lawrence’s daughter Charlotte, making her television debut.
Lawrence told the UK’s The Independent: “I’ll tell you, the amount of times that I’m on a show and people are like: ‘Hey, Bill, your show could use somebody under the age of 25, who has a million Instagram followers and can reach a different audience than your shows generally do.’ And the straight, selfish business person in me is going, ‘My daughter, my daughter, my daughter.’
“I’m really proud of her, man. As long as people acknowledge this, I would think it would be criminal for me not to want to spend time with and work with her. She’s a rock star. She’s awesome.”
