Twenty-six episodes – one of which won an Annecy Award – were first shown on Malaysian satellite television network Astro before being distributed to sixty other countries.

The story of a young Malay boy's childhood in a kampung (village) proved to be a commercial and critical success, establishing its author Lat as the "most renowned cartoonist in Malaysia".

[2] Western and Japanese cartoons flooded the local television channels during the 1990s,[3] and Lat decried those productions for violence and jokes that he considered unsuitable for Malaysia and its youths.

[4] After Krishnan's company offered Lat financial support to start an animation project,[7][8] the cartoonist began plans to adapt his trademark comic to the television screen.

World Sports and Entertainment of Los Angeles was involved as well; Norman Singer organised the production and Gerald Tripp helped Lat to write the script.

They failed to inform him that although a slow pace worked for static cartoon drawings, a good animation was often "lively, fast-moving, full of action and fantasy".

His experience with Matinee's team of writers and animators was positive; they were more proactive than Lacewood's, brainstorming his ideas and turning them into viable scripts and storyboards.

[8] Lat, however, had the final say with regards to cultural depictions, overriding several suggestions such as characters kissing in front of others and the use of Western street slang, as these were unpalatable to the Malaysian public.

[8] The entire project took four years to complete;[8] each episode cost approximately 350,000 United States dollars (about one million Malaysian ringgit), partly funded by Measat,[11] and took four to five months to produce.

Sporting a broad nose, small eyes, and untidy black hair, the short and rounded boy resembles his creator, Lat, as a child.

[21] The two are styled after comic characters of traditional wayang kulit (shadow play);[19] Bo is the more intelligent of the pair, while Tak has a tendency to be a show-off.

[25] Nur Aishah Othman Adiwayu Ansar Zainuddin Natasha Yusof Radhi Khalid [ms] Whereas Kampung Boy the comic book was based on life in the 1950s, its animation spin-off was set in the 1990s.

[26] Dr. Rohani Hashim, of Universiti Sains Malaysia's School of Communication, called the series a "detailed recreation of a rural Malay childhood".

Outlines are drawn in a bold manner, making objects stand out from the background – an effect particularly aided by the rich use of brown, green, and yellow as the dominant colours.

[17] Kampung life in the animation features "true-blue Malaysian elements" such as supernatural superstitions (pontianaks or female vampires), monkeys trained to pluck coconuts, and traditions that are forgotten in the transition from rural to urban living.

[1] According to her, the main theme in Kampung Boy is nostalgia, carrying Lat's intention to portray rural childhood as a "much more interesting and creative" experience than growing up in an urban environment.

"Si Mat Manusia Pintar" ("Smart Like a Flying Fox") suggests that the unpolluted environment of the kampung promotes the upbringing of a healthier and more intelligent child.

[8][10] For example, the convenience of motor cars versus the traditional use of bullock carts is debated by the characters in "Naik Keretaku" ("Dad's Driving Test").

[32] The city is characterised as a gateway to a range of cultures and ideas that are not found in a Malaysian rural village, as illustrated in the encounter and formation of a friendship between Mat and a Chinese boy in "Naik Keretaku".

Although the series presents the female characters as housewives, it makes the point in "Nasib Si Gadis Desa" ("The Fate of a Village Girl") that the traditional family role of the Malay woman is as equal and valuable as the man's.

[34] Overall, Rohani said Lat's cartoon series was subtly recording a story of "rapidly vanishing Malay tradition and innocence", while advising viewers to consider the societal changes around them.

[11] Lat explained that the producers had to tone down the use of "traditional Malay customs, locales and language" to market the series to a wider global audience.

[19] The animation was regarded by Dr. Paulette Dellios, of Bond University's School of Humanities and Social Sciences, as a cultural artefact: a reminder and preservation of a country's old way of life, created and produced by an international team, and displayed via modern technologies to the world.