‘Bad Monkey,’ Bad Deer, Bad Weather: The Fun of Filming in Florida

Alex Moffat, an actor and comedian best known for his work on “Saturday Night Live,” rarely shouts at deer. But during a tense scene in the new crime comedy “Bad Monkey,” a Key deer, a member of an endangered species native to the Florida Keys, kept entering the frame. In one exasperated moment, Moffat, in character as a disreputable real estate developer, turned to the deer and shouted, “Go back to the woods or whatever!”

The line wasn’t in the script. But it’s definitely in the show.

Developed by Bill Lawrence and debuting Wednesday on Apple TV+, “Bad Monkey” tracks a cop turned health inspector, Andrew Yancy (Vince Vaughn), who pursues a case involving a severed arm, Medicare fraud, voodoo-adjacent witchcraft and a menacing capuchin. It is based on Carl Hiaasen’s novel of the same title, and as with most Hiaasen tales, it is set in a version of the sunshine state defined by raw natural beauty and equally raw Florida-man shenanigans.

Not a lot of shows shoot in Florida — blame the lack of film infrastructure; blame the absence of tax breaks; blame the deer and the gnats and the 99 percent humidity. Even shows set in the state will typically shoot in North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana or, as in the case of Lawrence’s Florida-centric comedy “Cougar Town,” Los Angeles. This is understandable. When you film in Culver City, you rarely need to hire armed alligator wranglers.

Hiaasen, a former Miami Herald columnist, had been burned by Hollywood before. He strongly preferred a Florida shoot, especially for the scenes set in the Keys.

“There’s nowhere in California that looks like that,” Hiaasen said.

Lawrence (“Ted Lasso,” “Shrinking”), who had long had his sights on “Bad Monkey,” made that happen.

“Feeling authentically Florida and a little sweaty and dirty, it really mattered,” he said.