It is based on the characters from The Littles, a series of children's novels by American author John Peterson, the first of which was published in 1967.

During the production run of the show, the Littles were also popular enough to warrant two movie tie-ins: In 2003, the series began to air on the Syndicated DIC Kids Network block in order to fulfill E/I criteria.

Smiling Al takes advantage of the mayor's unpopularity to unseat him in the upcoming election, promising no restrictions on Little travel.

Some of the merchandise that was released during the series run included: tie-in story books, a Milton Bradley board game, stickers and greeting cards.

Foreign merchandise included many more items such as Halloween Masks, a set of figures, card game, VHS videos, records, and more.