This was the first Gerry Anderson TV series to make use of an early version of his Supermarionation marionette animation process, although the term was not coined until his next series, Supercar (1961).
The idea for Four Feather Falls came from music composer Barry Gray, who also wrote the first episode. Gerry Anderson later admitted that he didn't credit Gray as the series creator for no other reason other than he did not know such a title existed. "It's difficult to imagine," said Anderson some years later, "but we were desperately naive in those days."
Originally Tex Tucker was to have been aided by his obese assistant Buster and the pilot story included two other characters called Slim Jim and Jake Jollymop. Jake was replaced by Timothy Twinkle known as Ole Twink, the town's oldest resident, who in the final version was named Grandpa Ebenezer Twink and the name Jake was given to his grandson. Also, Martha Lollipop (later Martha Jones) was the storekeeper and she was assisted by Red Feather of the Kiowa tribe. The town's doctor was Angus McDougall, known to residents as Jock the Doc, and he was also the storyteller for each episode (which was later changed to Grandpa Twink as the storyteller). Other characters that didn't make it into the final version were Merry Myrtle, Mary Lou, Big Chief Four Feather and Saucy Sal.
The cast was assembled to record each script without seeing the puppets, much like recording a radio series; synchronization of each character's speech with the movement of its puppet's mouth was performed later.
The show's tight budget precluded the use of sophisticated special effects, and less-costly alternatives were used. For example, to achieve the effect of muzzle flashes from the puppet's guns, small specks of black paint were carefully applied to the 35 mm negatives so they would appear as white flashes on the finished prints.