The series was notable in being the first attempt since the closing of the MGM studio in the 1950s to restore the original format of the cat and mouse team.

The previous made-for-TV series, The Tom and Jerry Show, was produced in 1975 by Hanna and Barbera under their own studio under contract to MGM, but it had made the cat and mouse friends in most of the episodes due to the reaction against violence in cartoons.

MGM did not like what Hanna and Barbera had done with the characters, so they came to Filmation and asked the studio to do a new series and try to bring some life back to them.

Barney had miscellaneous roles, such as being Droopy's boss at a movie studio in "Star-Crossed Wolf" and a frightful companion in "Scared Bear".

Eddie Fitzgerald or one of the storyboard artists had shown him the Preston Blair book and some original studio model sheets, much to De Mello's excitement.

[10][11][12] The animators had to draw Alberto De Mello's model sheets, which Kricfalusi described as "wildly elaborate, yet nonsensical", with the characters "being made up of frightening balloon-like shapes and sausage fingers and toes".

A lot of the scripts were written by Coslough Johnson or Jack Hanrahan, but others such as animators Steve Clark and Jim Mueller contributed so much to the stories that they got their names added to the credits.

He always hoped for Fitzgerald's boards because they were the easiest and most fun to work from, with clear staging, and dynamic, direct, funny poses.

Kricfalusi had been studying Chuck Jones' The Dover Boys at Pimento University, and saw abstract background pans that did not make sense but propelled the movement along.

A few days later, the head of the background department, Erv Kaplan, had a fit upon discovering Kricfalusi's eyeball pan and refused to paint it.

Kricfalusi started talking about The Dover Boys to Kaplan, but he did not want any part of it, telling him never to put eyeballs or abstract shapes in the backgrounds again.

All of the shorts, both the Tom and Jerry and Droopy segments, used the same stock music, mostly created new for the series but consisting of only a handful of largely synthesized tunes, either with minor variations or played at different speeds or pitches.

[23] In late 2022, another episode, "Snowbrawl", was included as one of the 3 bonus cartoons on the Tom and Jerry: Snowman's Land DVD.