Crusader Rabbit was the first cartoon series produced explicitly for television. The first episode of Crusader vs. the State of Texas was aired on August 1, 1950.

Until the debut of the series, cartoons run on TV had originally been produced as cinema shorts, especially for Saturday matinees for children. Despite the name of the character and his appearance as a horse-riding knight in armor in the title sequence, the series had nothing to do with relgious crusades, but were very short and usually satirical chapter adventures in the form of the familiar movie serial, with a cliffhanger ending to each episode.

The original run had very limited animation, at times appearing almost as a series of narrated storyboards with frequent cuts and minor movement of the characters.

The series was broadcast new from 1950 - 1951, and reran for many years and featured a brave Crusader Rabbit, his pal Ragland T. Tiger (Rags), and their nemesis, Dudley Nightshade. Rags' name was a play on the jazz tune, Tiger Rag , and Dudley's on the poisonous plant.

The series was revived and 200 color episodes were produced in 1957 by Capitol Enterprises.

The idea of an animated series made for television originated with animator Alex Anderson, who worked for Terrytoons Studios. Terrytoons preferred to remain with film animation, and Anderson approached Jay Ward for financing. Ward became business manager and producer and joined with Anderson to form "Television Arts Productions". They sold the series to the NBC television network, who assigned Jerry Fairbank as supervising producer.

The voice of Crusader Rabbit was provided by Lucille Bliss in the original series, and Ge Ge Pearson in the revived series. Vern Louden played Rags in both. In the initial series, Dudley Nightshade was played by Russ Coughlin and narration was by Roy Whaley .

Jay Ward went on to produce the better known and more popular The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, with much the same structure and characterization, and the roles held by Crusader, Rags and Dudley taken by Rocky the squirrel, Bullwinkle the moose, and quasi-Soviet spies Boris and Natasha.

In 1985, Rhino Entertainment released the first two volumes in a planned re-release of all of the original episode run. However, they had to discontinue this plan when a dispute arose over who held the ownership rights to the series.