The series, produced by Nippon TeleMovie Productions, originally aired in Japan on NNS from April 1 to September 30, 1973.

The origins of the first adaptation of Doraemon are thought to have been planned by Masami Niikura, then-president of Nippon Television.

They initially approved of the show, but when they were shown the progress, they were apparently angered by the fact that they changed Nobita and Doraemon's personalities.

On August 3, the publisher of the Doraemon manga requested the station to cease airing the show, to make sure the reputation of the more famous and longer running 1979 series wasn't harmed, as well as to not confuse children watching between both versions.

Before they went defunct, they attempted to cover the debt by selling off the masters of the 1973 series, The Japanese post-production company IMAGICA, discovered episodes 18 and 20 through 26 in their archive, as well as segments 5A, 10B and 12B.

In 2003, the production chief of the show, Hiroshi Shimozaki, now going under the name Masami Jun or "mcsammy", came forward with several episodes and rush reels (raw footage).