Michael Showalter taught screenwriting at New York University film school for six years. During his time there, two students (Sarah-Violet Bloss and Charles Rogers) impressed Showalter and wanted to work more with them, so he brought them on to the staff of his Netflix show, "Wet Hot American Summer" and began developing "Search Party".
Showalter described the show's first season like a "millennial Nancy Drew".
According to an interview in Vulture Magazine, other key influences for the show were Alfred Hitchcock, Agatha Christie, Dateline, Roman Polanski, German expressionism and film noir tropes to name a few.
An episode is shot in four, 12-14 hour days with a very hard working crew.
Alia Shawkat (Dory) and Christine Taylor (Gail) previously starred in Arrested Development (2003), as Maeby Funke and Sally Sitwell, respectively.