[1] It was produced by Cartoon Pizza and was developed for television by Jim Jinkins (the creator of Doug, PB&J Otter, Allegra's Window, JoJo's Circus, and Pinky Dinky Doo) and David Campbell.

The series follows Stanley, voiced by Jessica D. Stone, and teaches a wide variety of issues young children face, including change, growth, rules, and dealing with others.

This does not appear to be imaginary since occasionally adults do notice the noise, and Stanley works hard to hide the animals.

There is also an episode where Stanley's brother sees a whale on the roof but dismisses the memory when it disappears back into the book.

When Playhouse Disney rebranded its on-air presentation in 2007, Stanley was put on a new time slot at 6:00 AM ET on weekends.

The film centers on the titular character as he, along with Elsie, Dennis, Harry, Marci, Mimi and Lester team up to save his Great Uncle Stew (John Ritter, who completed his work for the film before he died)'s dude ranch from the greedy Rockin' Rory (Randy Quaid) who intends to buy the ranch and turn it into an amusement park.