The show was renamed from Justice League of America to Super Friends by ABC in order to 'cut off any accusations of extreme patriotism', even though team members still sometimes referred to themselves as the Justice League on screen.

The violence typical of superhero comics was deliberately toned down for the show to appeal to younger audiences and comply with 1970s children's television broadcast standards.

Voice actors from prior Filmation animated series for Superman, Batman/Robin, and Aquaman were brought back for Super Friends, except for Marvin Miller, who was replaced by Norman Alden as the voice of Aquaman.

Sidekicks Wendy, Marvin and Wonder Dog were created specifically for the show and were not drawn from the comic books, following the 'teen detectives and talking animal' formula popularized by Scooby-Doo.

Three Hanna-Barbera-created heroes—Black Vulcan, Apache Chief, and Samurai—were added to the roster starting with Challenge of the Superfriends specifically to reflect diversity, followed later by El Dorado in 1981 for the same purpose.

A planned Batman animated series from the mid-1980s, presumably to feature Adam West reprising his voice role, never came to fruition; its intended pilot script 'The Fear' was instead adapted into an episode of The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians.

A 1983 cartoon based on The New Teen Titans was developed as a companion series to Super Friends but was never picked up by ABC due to the popularity of competing shows like The Smurfs; it would have excluded Robin since he was already a Super Friends member.

In January 2009, IGN ranked Super Friends as the 50th best animated television series of all time.