It has created many original animated television programs for Nickelodeon, such as SpongeBob SquarePants, The Fairly OddParents, Rugrats, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and The Loud House, among various others.

Since the 2010s, the studio has also produced its own series based on preexisting IP purchased by Paramount Global, such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Winx Club.

In November 2019, Nickelodeon Animation Studio signed a multiple-year output deal for Netflix, which will include producing content, in both new and preexisting IP, for the streaming platform, while also doing so for Paramount+.

In 1990, Nickelodeon hired Vanessa Coffey as a creative consultant to develop Nicktoons,[4] providing her with the task of seeking out new characters and stories that would allow the channel a grand entrance into the animation business.

Although most television networks at the time tended to go to large animation houses with proven track records to develop Saturday-morning series, often generally pre-sold characters from movies, toys or comics, Nickelodeon desired differently.

Inspired by the early days of animation and the work of Bob Clampett, Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, Nickelodeon set out to find frustrated cartoonists swallowed up by the studio system.

Seeking the most innovative talents in the field, the products of this artists' union – Doug, Rugrats and The Ren & Stimpy Show – represented twelve years of budget-building toward that end.

After Kricfalusi and Nickelodeon missed several promised new-episode delivery and air dates, the network—which had purchased the rights to the Ren & Stimpy characters from Kricfalusi—negotiated a settlement with him.

[11] The series was moved to Games, who hired as much personnel from Spümcø as possible and put under the creative supervision of Bob Camp, one of Kricfalusi's former writer-director partners.

She was replaced by Mary Harrington, a Nickelodeon producer who moved out from New York to help run the Nicktoons division that was a near-shambles after Kricfalusi was fired.

During the launch party, a gathering of union labor supporters formed a picket line to protest Nickelodeon's independent hiring practices outside the studio's iron gates.

[14] Located at 231 West Olive Avenue in Burbank, California, the 72,000-square-foot (6,700 m2) facility, designed by Los Angeles architecture firm AREA, houses 200–300 employees and up to five simultaneous productions.

It also contains a miniature golf course (with a hole dedicated to Walt Disney), an indoor basketball course/screening room, an artists' gallery, a studio store, and a fountain that shoots green water into the air.

The first DWA co-production was The Penguins of Madagascar, which would eventually premiere in November 2008 (followed by 2011's Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness and 2013's Monsters vs. Aliens).

In 2007, Nick launched El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera (the first Nicktoon created in Adobe Flash) and Tak and the Power of Juju (based on the video game series of the same name).

[18] Following both purchases, Nickelodeon Animation Studio began to produce new content for both franchises: a continuation of Winx Club and a reboot series of TMNT.

At Nickelodeon Animation Studio, this effort encompassed continuations for legacy shows, including Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling and Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus for Netflix and a CGI reboot of Rugrats for Paramount+.