734 - A Box Full of Teeth
Scriptnotes Podcast
John August
4.8 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2026
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
John and Craig welcome back Katie Dippold (Widow's Bay, Ghostbusters) to ask, what advice would you give to your younger self? They revisit the writers they used to be, offer specific guidance to each one, and demystify everything from "Why isn't a producer calling me back?" to "Should I join that sorority?"
Most importantly, we look at how Katie turned her former writing sample into the hilarious and spooky new show, Widow's Bay. We also answer listener questions on calling out stolen ideas and how to pitch yourself when your past work doesn't line up with your voice.
In our bonus segment for premium members, with the rise of AI, will there still be be movies and TV shows in ten or twenty years? Our best guesses lie just behind the paywall.
Links:
- Widow's Bay on AppleTV
- Katie Dippold on Instagram and IMDb
- Scriptnotes listener survey
- Katie as the Babadook
- The last time Katie was on Scriptnotes, Episode 272
- The Sheep Detectives
- Wolf's Belly Publisher's Weekly starred review (preorder the book here!)
- Oscar Rule Changes by Clayton Davis for Variety
- Weekend Read 2
- Watch Haley Z. Boston read her script for Something Very Bad is Going to Happen
- Captain Disillusion
- Homemade Heating Pad
- This Treatment Could Reverse Osteoarthritis Joint Damage With a Single Injection by Javier Carbajal for Wired
- Get your copy of the Scriptnotes book!
- Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
- Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
- Become a Scriptnotes Premium member, or gift a subscription
- Subscribe to Scriptnotes on YouTube
- Follow Scriptnotes on Instagram and TikTok
- John August on Bluesky and Instagram
- Outro by Eric Pearson (send us yours!)
- Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode here.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, this is John. A standard warning for people who are in the car of their kids. There's some swearing in this episode. |
| 0:08.6 | Hello and welcome. My name is John August. |
| 0:11.3 | Oh, my name is Craig Mason. |
| 0:14.7 | And this is episode 734 of Script Notes. It's a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. |
| 0:20.7 | Today on the show, we welcome back a writer whose credits include The Heat, Ghostbusters and Haunted Mansion. |
| 0:25.7 | Her incredible new show, Widows Bay, is now out on Apple TV. |
| 0:32.8 | What a dramatic pause. Her incredible new show, |
| 0:39.5 | Widows Bay. |
| 0:42.8 | Welcome back to the program after 10 years, Katie Dippold. |
| 0:43.2 | Woo! |
| 0:44.7 | Very happy to be here. |
| 0:47.3 | I've been trying to get back in here for the past decades. |
| 0:48.6 | Clawing your way back in. Yes, anything I can do. |
| 0:49.4 | You were last on the show, episode 272. |
| 0:52.1 | What, 500 episodes ago. |
| 0:54.0 | 2016. One of my favorite memories of that episode was when, remember when Malcolm, you asked him something, and he was just quiet, and then he's like, I'm out of gas. You're like, you're just done, he's like, I'm done. I respected it so much. That's what Malcolm, Malcolm used to play D&D with us. And at some point, he would just get up and lie down and sleep. |
| 1:12.9 | Yeah. |
| 1:13.2 | Yeah. |
| 1:13.8 | He knows how to live. |
| 1:15.1 | We can't have you on the show without talking about our special connection. |
| 1:19.1 | We always need to discuss our special connection. |
| 1:22.0 | Katie Dippold and I both lived or attended school in Freehold, New Jersey, competing high schools. She was at the somewhat |
... |
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