The road to creating Widow’s Bay, Apple TV’s newest comedy sensation that has landed 19 Emmy nominations in its debut season, has been a long one for creator/showrunner/executive producer Katie Dippold. In fact, from the first drafts to its premiere at the tail end of the Emmy season, it has been 18 years.

During that time it wasn’t just this one idea Dippold has been working on, but rather part of an impressive writing career with a lot of notable comedies across film and TV. Those credits on the big screen include The Heat with Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock, the all-female Ghostbusters, Snatched with Goldie Hawn and Amy Schumer, and Disney’s 2023 remake of Haunted Mansion. In addition to all that she was a writer-producer from 2009-2013 on Parks & Recreation, the place where her idea for Widow’s Bay first came to fruition.

As a performer she was a key member of the improv group Upright Citizens Brigade, a writer on Mad TV’s 12th season, and on the MTV prank series Boiling Points.

Now she finds herself a front-runner for writing and producing Widow’s Bay and she joins me for this episode of my Deadline video series Behind the Lens to talk about its inspirations, her idea to mix horror and comedy in ways it hasn’t been done before. She also reveals her reaction to getting praise from Guillermo del Toro and Stephen King, all those Emmy nominations and so much more, including where the show is headed in its second season now in the works in the writers room plus spilling secrets about that shocking finale.

To watch our conversation and go “behind the lens” with Katie Dippold, watch the video above.

Join me every Monday and Friday this season for a new edition of Behind the Lens.