Duckman was created and developed by Everett Peck, based on characters he originally created in a 1990 one-shot comic book published by Dark Horse Comics.

The first season featured music from Frank Zappa's published catalog, notably timed as Zappa had died several months before the series premiered; Duckman's teenage son Ajax was voiced by Zappa's own son, Dweezil Zappa.

Klasky Csupo animated and produced Duckman while simultaneously producing Aaahh!!! Real Monsters for Nickelodeon around the same period.

In the series finale, one of the brides is named Dana Reynard, a nod to The X-Files' Dana Scully, according to writer Michael Markowitz, who later revealed on Twitter that the unresolved finale cliffhanger was meant to involve a government cover-up of aliens.

When the series was released on Region 1 DVD, many episodes had to be edited to remove copyrighted music due to royalty issues, making them differ from the originally aired versions; creator Everett Peck was involved in this process and felt the most important music was preserved.

A point-and-click adventure video game, Duckman: The Graphic Adventures of a Private Dick, was released for Microsoft Windows in May 1997, while a planned PlayStation port was cancelled.

Duckman was ranked 48th on IGN's 2009 list of the Top 100 Best Animated TV Shows and received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Animated Program, for the episodes "T.V. or Not to Be" (1994), "Noir Gang" (1996), and "Haunted Society Plumbers" (1997).

In July 2026, an intro sequence for a proposed revival of the series was released online, with Klasky Csupo co-founder Gábor Csupó expressing hope that CBS or a streaming platform would pick it up.