Founded in July 1971 by Michael Hirsh, Patrick Loubert, and Clive A. Smith, it was named after Nelvana of the Northern Lights, the first Canadian national superhero, who was created by Adrian Dingle.

Although the company specializes in children's media, Nelvana has also co-produced adult animations like the first season of Clone High, John Callahan's Quads!, Bob & Margaret, and Committed.

During their first year and a half, the trio lived off a superfluous Chargex credit card that Loubert received at university, spending up to C$7,500 on it before they reclaimed double that cost as their first ever transaction.

Among the studio's first productions was a low-budget CBC short subject series, Small Star Cinema, which combined live-action and animation to tell stories of ordinary life from a child's point of view.

Nelvana worked on their first television specials: A Cosmic Christmas (1977), The Devil and Daniel Mouse (1978), Romie-0 and Julie-8 (1979), Please Don't Eat the Planet (better known by its subtitle, Intergalactic Thanksgiving) (1979), Easter Fever (1980) and Take Me Up to the Ball Game (1980).

During that time, George Lucas, who was impressed with A Cosmic Christmas,[2] commissioned the company to work on a 10-minute sequence for the CBS and CTV TV film Star Wars Holiday Special in 1978.

This short scene, officially entitled "The Faithful Wookiee", featured the voices of Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Anthony Daniels and James Earl Jones, and introduced the bounty hunter Boba Fett.

At the beginning of the 1980s, Nelvana chose to co-produce its first feature film, Rock & Rule, over working on Heavy Metal, internationally-produced animated science fiction anthology.

At one point, there was talk of an animated CBS show from the studio, based on the BBC's Doctor Who; the plan never came to fruition,[8] but concept art was created by Ted Bastien.

Nelvana faced bankruptcy for the second time when the show's original U.S. distributor, Qintex Entertainment (formerly Hal Roach Studios) was going out of business; in six weeks, they were saved when they found a replacement.

[2] As the decade came to a close, the revived Nelvana had its next big success with a film and an HBO television show based on Jean de Brunhoff's Babar book series.

White (The Trumpet of the Swan), Clive Barker (The Thief of Always) and Graeme Base (The Sign of the Seahorse); an original co-production called Mask Vision was also in the works.

A 1993 live-action psychological thriller called Malice came out under the Columbia Pictures banner; 1997 saw the studio's retelling of Pippi Longstocking from Warner Bros.; and Babar: King of the Elephants was released in Canada by Alliance Atlantis in 1999.

In 1993, Nelvana along with Galaxy Films and De Souza Productions co-produced Cadillacs and Dinosaurs for the CBS network, based on the comic book of the same name (formally known as Xenozoic Tales) by Mark Schultz.

In addition, Jehene Erwin and Joy Tanner portrayed Bess Marvin and George Fayne, respectively, on Nancy Drew, while Fiona Highet played new character Kate Craigen.

[21][22] In late 1997, Nelvana and the United Kingdom's Channel 4 began work on Bob and Margaret, the company's first animated franchise for adults since Rock & Rule.

[24] In April 1998, Nelvana entered into an agreement with ITV franchise Scottish Television to co-produce these new series, and hold distribution rights to them in the United Kingdom.

[26] The company's first two computer-animated shows, Donkey Kong Country and Rolie Polie Olie (with Paris-based Sparx* and distributed by Disney Channel), premiered on U.S. television in 1998.

[28] The six series—Corduroy, Elliot Moose, Timothy Goes to School, Seven Little Monsters, George Shrinks, and Marvin the Tap-Dancing Horse—were launched the following September as part of the PBS Kids Bookworm Bunch line-up.

[30] In April 2000, Nelvana announced that it had filed for two category 2 television licences from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to launch digital cable channels.

[36] On April 14, 2000, Nelvana announced its purchase of the Palo Alto-based children's book publisher Klutz in a US$74 million deal—at that time, its largest buyout ever[37]—and integrated it into its Branded Consumer Products division.

Texas-based FUNimation, along with British company Maverick, has distributed titles from the studio with this label, including Redwall, Pecola, Tales from the Cryptkeeper, Timothy Goes to School and the holiday special The Santa Claus Brothers.

[53] On October 19, 2016, Nelvana redesigned their logo to mark the studio's 45th anniversary, as well as take part in Corus' brand refresh following latter's acquisition of Shaw Media.

The following October, Nelvana announced the launch of a new joint venture with Discovery Communications (WBD) to create children's content for Canada, Latin America and the rest of the world.

[63] In July 2024, as a result of budget cuts and layoffs across Corus Entertainment, a number of positions at Nelvana were eliminated, including that of Vice President Athena Georgaklis, and all development of new projects was paused.

[64] Nelvana co-CEO John Gossling announced: "We're making tough decisions to shutter areas of the business we can no longer sustain and pause longer-term development activities while we implement efficiency initiatives."

Nelvana also sold its software subsidiary Toon Boom Animation to private equity firm Integrated Media Company for $111 million to help Corus pay down debt.

[65][66] Many of Nelvana's TV shows are based on properties from other companies, most of which started in other forms of media (excluding its namesake superhero, which never received an adaptation of any kind).

A great deal of them are based on children's literature and comic books; examples include Blazing Dragons, Stickin' Around, Wayside, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, The Adventures of Tintin, Anatole, Babar, The Berenstain Bears, Franklin, Jane and the Dragon, Little Bear, The Magic School Bus, Pippi Longstocking, Redwall, Rupert, My Dad the Rock Star, and the shows of the PBS Kids Bookworm Bunch block, as well as Tales from the Cryptkeeper, Beetlejuice, Jacob Two-Two, Sidekick and Teletoon/Nick Jr.'s Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends.

As with many other animation studios, Nelvana has a wide range of established original series and characters within its roster; 6teen, Clone High, Birdz, Corn & Peg, and Eek!