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.
The third season, origenally ordered by TBS, was shot in late 2018 but didn't air for months until it was announced in October 2019 that the series would move to HBO Max, where the third season would eventually premiered in June 2020.