Decker began as a web spinoff/tie-in to the series On Cinema at the Cinema, launching on July 17, 2014, before later moving to television.

The show is intentionally produced as a spoof of action films with deliberately bad production values, CGI errors, low-quality animations, misquotes, and bad editing for comedic effect.

Many recurring jokes and the on-screen antipathy between Decker and Turkington's characters mirror the real-life relationship and personas of actors Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington from On Cinema.

Joe Estevez's portrayal of the meek liberal President Jason Davidson is a deliberate play on his brother Martin Sheen's role as President Josiah Bartlet in The West Wing.

Mark Proksch's character Abdul Sharif is a running joke carried over from On Cinema, as the actor's various roles in the show require impersonation skills far beyond his in-universe persona's actual talent.

The Dracula character was credited as 'James Dean' as part of an On Cinema storyline in which Gregg claims to have found James Dean alive after faking his own death.

Many traits of Jack Decker's character, including his political rants, are based on Donald Trump's mannerisms.

Heidecker has said the production purposefully involves little preparation to keep the show looking low-quality, and that the cast will 'go off-script and rant a bit to get everyone confused.'

The show inspired the creation of Decker-Con, a fan event where new episodes are screened and the cast appears in character to meet fans, reflecting the series' cult following on social media.

Decker moved from Adultswim.com to television, with its fourth season premiering on Adult Swim on June 17, 2016, followed by a fifth and sixth season that both aired in 2017.