In the French version of the show, writer-director Martin Villeneuve lends his voice to the character of Bill Bélisle, a journalist and Sally Ketchup's former lover. Villeneuve, who starred as Imelda in Les 12 travaux d'Imelda (2022), auditioned for the part. In English, Bill Bélisle is performed by veteran voice actor John Stocker.
Red Ketchup co-creator Pierre Fournier, who died on November 12, 2022 at the age of seventy-two, worked on the animated series' early development by attending story rooms with director Martin Villeneuve and approving the basic directions of the show.
Red Ketchup's relative brevity, given its origin as serialized installments in Titanic and Croc, requires expansion of the series to fit a twenty-episode order. To do this, the B-stories focus more on the lives of the rich supporting cast. This includes Red Ketchup's sister Sally, and enemies Red faces such as Dr. K and Olga Dynamo, as the series welds the first three comic book albums into a twenty-episode arc.
Steve "Red" Ketchup - an albino empowered by chemical means - is a former police officer, now an FBI agent. Ruthless and violent, a combatant skilled in both armed and unarmed fighting techniques, he appears to be invulnerable, apparently through a combination of being incredibly fit, having a high pain threshold, and drug overdose. This antihero, with his Grace Jones style red hairdo with the physical of Arnold Schwarzenegger, always wearing a blue suit and sunglasses, has been vaguely inspired by Jack Lord from the Hawaii Five-O (1968) TV series, and Michael Murphy (Brewster McCloud (1970)). Ketchup is a veteran of the Vietnam War.
The animated version follows the lead of the comics by setting the series in 1986, initially using the Cold War as a backdrop. Mirroring the comic's many genre shifts, which over Red Ketchup's run sees the character handle conspiracy theories, time travel and a stint in Hell, this show is not only political satire. There are sides of science fiction, fantasy, adventure, and tributes to James Bond and Indiana Jones movies.