Catherine Hicks (Karen) and Kevin Yagher (Chucky's creator) met on set and were married a year later.

Chucky's full name, Charles Lee Ray, is derived from the names of notorious killers Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald (assassin of John F. Kennedy) and James Earl Ray (assassin of Martin Luther King).

In the scene where Chucky runs behind Maggie in the hallway, Chucky was actually played by Alex Vincent's younger sister.

The Chucky films have always been accused of inspiring violence in children. One case linked to the series was a gang in Manchester kidnapping and murdering a 16-year-old girl. While they tortured her, they forced her to listen to recordings of the gang leader repeating the catchphrase "I'm Chucky, wanna play?" Director Tom Holland has always defended the first film from these accusations, stating that viewers of horror movies could only be influenced by their content if they were unbalanced to begin with.

The original plot idea was to have life-like Good Guy dolls that had blood and latex skin. If the kids tore the latex skin, they could go out and buy Official Good Guy bandages. In a blood-brother pact, Andy cut his own hand and mixed his blood with Chucky's, thus causing him to come alive and become human.

All of Brad Dourif's voiceover work for Chucky was recorded in advance so they could match up Chucky's mouth with the words. Because of this, Dourif rarely ever appeared on set during the "doll" scenes. Instead, recordings of his voice would be played back for Alex Vincent to go by. Also, Brad would act out the scenes with the actors before they filmed said scenes.

The original working title for the film was "Batteries Not Included" before it became known Steven Spielberg was also making a film with the same title. It was then changed to "Blood Buddy" before settling on "Child's Play".

The first draft of the script was completed in the summer of 1985 and referenced Chucky as Buddy who came to life after mixing blood with Andy and killed those against Andy (for example, the babysitter and teacher) manifesting Andy's loneliness and isolation from an overworked mother and absent father. In addition to being a more psychologically driven horror film, "Buddy" also only came alive at night when Andy was asleep.

In an interview, Don Mancini said in the original script, Child's Play (1988) was at first a satire on toy marketing and merchandising for children, before the idea morphed into a horror film instead.