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The idea for Surf's Up dates back to at least 2002, four and a half years before other penguin films like Happy Feet came to theaters. There was already a project about a surfer penguin in development at Sony, described as something between West Side Story and Romeo + Juliet, but screenwriter Chris Jenkins considered the idea weak and the project died before being reintroduced with a mockumentary angle.

To obtain the handheld camera feel of a real documentary, the animation team motion-captured the movements of a physical camera operator, creating a technology that simulated a real film set where the virtual set reacted instantly to the camera's movement.

Real surfers Kelly Slater and Rob Machado lent their voices to penguin versions of themselves in the film and also gave feedback to animators on how the waves should be animated.

To reinforce the mockumentary atmosphere, voice actors were invited to improvise their lines during recording sessions.

The version of the song 'Wipe Out' heard in the film is performed by punk band The Queers, but on the official soundtrack it appears credited under the pseudonym 'Big Nose', probably for marketing reasons.

The Green Day songs 'Welcome to Paradise' and 'Holiday' play as background music in the film, but neither appears on the official soundtrack released.

The surfing material company Quiksilver served as creative consultant in the film's production, helping to give authenticity to the surfing universe portrayed.

The DVD and Blu-ray of the film included two animated short films, The ChubbChubbs! and The ChubbChubbs Save Xmas, the latter being a world premiere in that release.