The premise of being forced to move to a town they once bought as a joke was inspired by actress Kim Basinger's $20 million purchase of the town of Braselton, Georgia in 1989. Eugene Levy said, "My wife had an idea for a television show about boomers not having money or moving in with their kids. Their situation was described as being up sh–'s creek [sic]. It just made us laugh. Then my son Daniel came in with an article one day about an actress, Alec Baldwin's ex-wife (Basinger), who bought a town. She was hoping that film people would come to the town to use it as a location area and she lost a lot of money. The idea of wealthy people buying a town went back to the Schitt's Creek idea."
The wealthy Rose family — video store magnate Johnny (Eugene Levy), his wife and former soap opera actress Moira (Catherine O'Hara), and their pampered adult children David (Dan Levy) and Alexis (Annie Murphy) — lose their fortune after being defrauded by their business manager. They move towards rebuilding their lives with their sole remaining asset: a remote town named Schitt's Creek somewhere in Canada, which Johnny bought for David's birthday in 1991 as a joke.
Schitt's Creek was filmed using a single camera set-up with no live audience or laugh track. The interior scenes for the first two seasons were filmed at Pinewood Toronto Studios in the Port Lands area of Toronto, while interior scenes for season three were shot at Dufferin Gate Studios in (Etobicoke) Toronto. Interior scenes were also filmed at Revival Studios in (Leslieville) Toronto for an unknown number of seasons. The remainder of the series is filmed on location in Goodwood, the Regional Municipality of Durham in the Greater Toronto Area, Brantford and Mono, where the motel scenes are filmed. Goodwood was one of 30 towns scouted for the fictional location of Schitt's Creek before production of the series began in 2014. The Canadian Press wrote June 27, 2019 that Goodwood had become a "tourist hot spot" as filming for the current season concluded.
In 2015, Schitt's Creek's first season received two Directors Guild of Canada awards from three nominations. At the 2016 ceremony, season 1 received nine Canadian Screen Awards from 16 nominations. Schitt's Creek's second season received 13 nominations at the 5th Canadian Screen Awards. In 2018, the series received nominations from the US-based MTV Movie & TV Awards and the Critics' Choice Television Award. In 2019, the series was nominated for 15 Canadian Screen Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards, winning the award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Continuing Leading Comedic Role (Catherine O'Hara) and Best Comedy Program or Series at the Canadian Screen Awards. The same year, the series won Dorian Awards for TV Comedy of the Year and Unsung TV Show of the Year from the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics. In 2020, the sixth and final season was nominated for 15 Primetime Emmy Awards. This broke the record for the most Emmy nominations given to a comedy series in its final season. During the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, the show became the first ever comedy or drama series to sweep the four acting categories (Outstanding Lead Actor, Outstanding Lead Actress, Outstanding Supporting Actor, Outstanding Supporting Actress) and one of only four live action shows, along with All in the Family, The Golden Girls, and Will & Grace where all the principal actors have won at least one Emmy Award. In 2021, it won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
Schitt's Creek was part of a "new direction" in programming taken by both the CBC and Pop TV during the 2014–15 television season. Premiering alongside 12 new primetime shows on the CBC, the series represented one of the network's efforts to produce more "serialized, scripted" content, as well as more "cable-like" shows. The series was also the first original, scripted program to air on Pop TV after its re-branding in January 2015. Formerly known as TV Guide Network, Pop TV was re-branded as a channel "filled with optimism, passion, funny and excitement".
Schitt's Creek has been co-broadcast in Canada and the United States since 2015. It premiered on the CBC in Canada on Tuesday, January 13, 2015, at 9:00 pm/9:30 pm NT with back-to-back episodes. It made its United States debut on Pop TV on Wednesday, February 11, 2015, at 10:00 pm ET/PT. Pop moved the series to an 8:00 pm ET/PT time slot with an encore broadcast at 11:00 pm ET/PT for seasons two through four; then returned it to its original 10:00 pm ET/PT time slot for season five. The series maintained staggered premieres throughout its first five seasons, with new episodes debuting in Canada before being broadcast in the US. This changed in the final season, with new episodes broadcast simultaneously in Canada and the US. The series finale aired on April 7, 2020 at 8:00 pm ET; followed by a one-hour behind-the-scenes retrospective documentary, Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: A Schitt's Creek Farewell. In the US, the series finale was Schitt's Creek's highest-rated episode ever and was simulcast on Logo TV and Comedy Central, which had recently become sibling networks to Pop TV through the ViacomCBS merger.
Subsequent seasons of Schitt's Creek were more positively received, with the show growing in popularity after debuting on Netflix in January 2017. On Rotten Tomatoes, seasons 2, 4, 5 and 6 have approval ratings of 100%, with season 4's consensus reading, "The comedic real estate value rises for Schitt's Creek in its fourth year, the series gradually maturing into appointment viewing with a big, beating heart beneath its absurdity." The final season's consensus reads: "Witty, warm, and with just the right blend of wisdom and wisecracks, Schitt's Creek's final season is the perfect farewell to the Roses and the town that changed their lives." On Metacritic, the final season has a score of 94 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Bridget Read of Vogue wrote that while the series "started off with typical fish out of water scenarios," it has "fully come into its own, with a whole cast of Twin Peaks-meets-Christopher-Guest-universe characters that are as equally endearing". In New York Magazine, Maggie Fremont wrote that "the show takes a few episodes to get into its groove, but once it does, you'll never want to leave". The series has placed on annual best-of lists published by The A.V. Club, Esquire, Glamour, The Guardian, The New Yorker, and Variety. In 2019, the series was named "The Best Show on TV Right Now" by TV Guide.
In 2018, Debmar-Mercury, a division of Lionsgate, acquired the U.S. syndication rights to Schitt's Creek. The series is scheduled to debut in syndication with the Fox Television Stations serving as the flagship group throughout the U.S. during the fall 2020 television season. The series also began airing reruns of series on Comedy Central on October 2, 2020. In December 2021, Fox Television Stations announced an end of syndication of the show at the close of the 2021–2022 television season.
During the show's later seasons, the main cast participated in a series of interactive fan events. A live audience promotional tour known as Schitt's Creek: Up Close & Personal featuring cast members Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Dan Levy, Annie Murphy, Emily Hampshire, and Noah Reid premiered in September 2018 in Los Angeles. The event included behind-the-scenes stories; a live question and answer session with the cast; and an audience participation trivia game. Following the initial event's success, the tour was expanded to include stops in several additional US and Canadian cities in 2019. Daniel Levy stated that the tour was meant to both promote the show and thank fans for their support.
In December 2019, fans on social media accused UK television station 4Music of censoring some scenes featuring "intimate dialogue" and kissing between the show's LGBTQ characters. Co-creator and star, Dan Levy, also addressed the alleged censorship on social media calling it "highly disturbing" and "dangerous". 4Music responded to the allegations of censored kissing with an apology, stating that the removal of a kiss between two male characters was "human error" and would be restored for future broadcasts. The station did not specifically respond to the allegations of censored dialogue between LGBTQ characters.
In November and December 2019, Schitt's Creek's US broadcaster, Pop TV, staged two immersive fan events in Los Angeles and New York City. These events allowed participants to visit the titular town via a series of "reimagined" sets featured on the show.
To promote the series' sixth and final season in January 2020, the CBC and Pop TV commissioned "groundbreaking" billboards featuring a same-sex kiss between the show's engaged couple, David and Patrick. Series creator Dan Levy said it felt "irresponsible" not to put the characters kissing on a billboard, as it isn't "something we see every day" and is "banned in multiple countries."
In June 2020, the cast of the show was featured in the YouTube "Dear Class of 2020" event performing the Mariah Carey song "Hero", with Carey herself making a surprise appearance.
Toronto mayor John Tory announced that on Monday, September 21, 2020, the CN Tower would be lit up in gold to celebrate the Schitt's Creek record-breaking sweep of every top comedy award at the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards.
Additional accusations of censorship were made in October 2020 when co-creator and star, Dan Levy, called out Comedy Central India for editing a same-sex kiss between two male characters in a promotional clip posted to Comedy Central India's Twitter account. Levy noted via social media that Schitt's Creek is "a show about the power of inclusivity" and censoring gay intimacy was a "harmful statement against that message".
The former Hockley Motel in Mono, where the exterior shots of the Rosebud Motel were filmed, was marketed for sale by its owners in November 2020.
As of 2019, the series was also airing on 4Music in the UK; Comedy Central in India; FX Asia; and ABC Comedy in Australia. It was previously broadcast in New Zealand by TV2 and TVNZ on Demand, in Australia by ABC and its iView streaming service, and on Comedy Central in India. The five seasons appeared, though not always together, on different streaming television services worldwide. Netflix carried the first five seasons and later six for viewers in the U.S., UK, Ireland, France, Japan, Australia and South Africa. IMDb TV, a streaming service available through IMDb, and CW Seed, a streaming service for the American CW network, also carries the first five seasons for viewers in the U.S. The series first season is available from July 14, 2021, in Italy, through the streaming platform Mediaset Infinity+.
In April 2022, Hulu acquired the U.S. streaming rights to Schitt's Creek. All six seasons of the series began streaming exclusively on the service starting on October 3.