When you look at a list of Apple TV+’s best shows, two prominent entries come from super producer Bill Lawrence. I’m, of course, talking about Ted Lasso and Shrinking, and now, the showrunner is adding another unique comedy to his catalog of projects on the streamer called Bad Monkey. So, I had to ask him about all three series, and he ended up telling me why they wouldn’t have been made years ago during the times of his other hits like Spin City and Scrubs.
During an interview for CinemaBlend about Bad Monkey and its premiere on the 2024 TV schedule, I asked Lawrence what he’d learned from working on Ted Lasso and Shriking that helped him on his latest show. He told me that since “they’re so different” it’s hard to compare them creatively. However, he did explain how all these comedies are big swings, especially when you compare them to traditional sitcoms. The showrunner started his explanation by throwing it back to Spin City:
I mean, it’s so weird. I was telling someone, not in one of these interviews, but the other day that I can’t believe the stuff we get to do nowadays, because I’ve been doing this so long. Back in Spin City days when I was like, ‘It’s Michael J. Fox and everybody in the mayor’s office…’ that’s easy.
Both Spin City and Scrubs are considered some of the best sitcoms of all time, and they highlight Lawrence’s range as a creator. Shrinking, Ted Lasso and Bad Monkey do too.
However, back in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s they might not have gotten greenlit, as the producer continued his explanation by summarizing Shrinking in the same way he broke down Spin City:
If I’d gone in and gone, ‘Hey, I want to do a comedy, and it’s about a young father whose wife got killed. So he’s hanging out with sex workers, and doing drugs, and being a really horrible dad to his 17-year-old. What do you say?’ The pitch would have been over in 10 seconds. They would have been like, ‘Bye, bye!’ You know?
That is indeed how Season 1 of the Jason Segel-led comedy starts. Also, Lawrence makes a good point that a nuanced comedy about therapists that begins with one one of them going rogue after his wife dies probably wouldn’t have made it far on a network. Or, at the very least, it would have been a very different series. However, on Apple, the show that’s simultaneously a hilarious workplace comedy and a deep study of grief worked great, and Season 2 of Shrinking is coming out in October!
Now, looking at his upcoming Apple TV+ project, Bad Monkey, Bill Lawrence made a similar point. The series is a book-to-screen adaptation of Carl Hiaasen’s novel, and the showrunner described the Florida-based whodunnit as “satire bordering on surreal.” It’s a lot to juggle tonally, and it doesn’t exactly fit within the box of one genre, as he explained:
And so look, the only connection is that Apple is a great place if you want to take some chances with storytelling. And look, that’s really the relation, because Bad Monkey is not necessarily the type of show that’s on right now, you know? And it’s definitely a throwback, you know? So I wanted it to feel like a big summer movie. Carl Hiaasen’s stuff is satire bordering on surreal, and so you have to hope it seems authentic, because he based all that stuff on real characters he researched in Florida.
Ultimately, the point Bill Lawrence made during our conversation was that Apple TV+ has allowed him to stretch creatively and make new and unique shows that are unlike each other. He’s gotten to make a sports comedy, a comedy about therapy and grief, and now a funny whodunnit starring Vince Vaughn. Not many places would let him take shots like that, which is why he told me:
So I think the attachment is just that Apple’s been really supportive of me taking some weird chances. I mean, I always tell everybody when you talk about taking shots on someone Jason Sudeikis and I always tell everybody ‘Apple’s the only one that bought Ted Lasso, much less even kind of acted interest in the pitch.’
In hindsight, it’s wild to think that no one wanted Ted Lasso. However, at the time, a heartfelt and optimistic story about an American football coach going across the pond to coach an English football team wasn’t wanted anywhere but Apple.
Of course, there have been networks and platforms that have taken what were likely considered “weird chances” that really paid off. Take Michael Schur going from the workplace mockumentaries The Office and Parks and Rec to the existential and philosophical comedy The Good Place on NBC as an example. However, it’s uncommon, and there’s no denying that streaming shows have fewer constraints on them.
The point Bill Lawrence made to me was that Apple TV+ has given him a space to make series that are wild and unconventional, and it’s proven to work. Ted Lasso is a prime example of it, and Shrinking proved to be another success. Now, we’ll see if he can keep the streak alive with Bad Monkey when it premieres on August 14!