The show was set at a small independent animation studio, and was co-created by Allan Burns and Herbert Klynn.
The premiere episode introduces Skip Tarkenton (Carrey), a somewhat naive and optimistic young man who has come to Hollywood looking for a job as a cartoonist.
Other Duck Factory employees seen regularly on the show were man-of-a-thousand-cartoon voices Wally Wooster (played by real-life cartoon voice artist Don Messick); cynical, sometimes lazy comedy writer Marty Fenneman (played by real-life comedy writer Jay Tarses); veteran artist and animator Brooks Carmichael (Jack Gilford); younger storyboard artist Roland Culp (Clarence Gilyard); sarcastic editor Andrea Lewin; and hard-nosed, penny-pinching business manager Aggie Aylesworth.
Seen in some episodes were clips from various "Dippy Duck" cartoons the Buddy Winkler crew were working on—sometimes fully animated, sometimes in pencil sketch or animatic form.
Jay Tarses, an actor on The Duck Factory, had been the co-creator and executive producer of Buffalo Bill, which had its final network telecast on Thursday, April 5, 1984.
In 1995, at the height of Carrey's career, some episodes of the series were released in the United States on two VHS videocassettes by MTM Home Video.