Crayon Shin-chan first appeared in a Japanese weekly magazine called Weekly Manga Action, which is published by Futabasha. Crayon Shin-chan began broadcasting on TV Asahi on April 13, 1992, and has also been aired by the anime television network, Animax across Japan and Latin America. Starting in April 2006, Crayon Shin-chan celebrated its 15th anniversary by starting each broadcast announcing the fact that it is 15th anniversary no matter what season it is. This feature is expected to end in April 2007.

Much of the humor in the series stems from Shin-chan's occasionally weird, unnatural and inappropriate use of language, as well as from his inappropriate behavior. Therefore much of this humor is untranslatable for Western readers and viewers, and a few jokes can't even be translated into other East Asian languages. In Japanese, certain set phrases almost always accompany certain actions; many of these phrases have standard responses. A typical gag involves Shin-chan confounding his parents by using the wrong phrase for the occasion. For example, Japanese usually announce that they are back when they have returned home. Shin chan would make the mistake of saying, "welcome home!" when he arrives instead of "I'm home!".

FUNimation Entertainment has acquired the license for the Shin-chan anime in the US as of 2006, with plans on releasing the series on DVD on September 18, 2007. [2] As per all international licenses for the series, TV Asahi remained a licensing partner for North America. The new dub received a month-long test run on Cartoon Network on the Adult Swim programming block. The show returned to Adult Swim on April 9th, at a 12:30 am EDT timeslot. [3] The new dub features a Texas-based cast of voice actors, and English scripts written by television writers Jared Hedges, Joel Bergen, Alex Muniz, and a few part-time writers. Comic and television writers Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer also contributed to the scripts for polish/punch-up. The dub is directed by Zach Bolton, and occasionally Laura Bailey.

The dialogue and humor of FUNimation's dub are extremely adult-oriented, with many sexual references and references to popular American culture. For example, in one scene, Ai and Penny argue over which one of them is Jessica Simpson and which one is Ashlee Simpson, which is very different to the original Japanese script that dealt with many social issues within Japan at the time. The use of modern American pop culture references to a show otherwise dated by the times was also used in Geneon's dub of the popular Lupin the 3rd 1978 series. Most episodes of the American dub have received a rating of TV-14, for its relatively strong suggestive dialogue (D) and coarse language (L). However, some episodes are rated TV-MA for more offensive language, stronger sexual dialogue, and objectionable humor/content deemed too strong for a TV-14 rating. Outlines of the episodes used by FUNimation can be found here.

FUNimation episodes are streamed online weekly at Adult Swim's free broadband service, Adult Swim Video, which is available worldwide. Also, the tenth episode that was dubbed is available at AdultSwim.com for free as an interactive video. In addition to watching the episode, one can watch video commentary from the FUNimation staff, booth recordings, script comparisons, bios, show artwork, and other special features.