Inspiration for the film came from penny arcades, where Bakshi would often spend his time playing pinball, sometimes bringing his 12-year-old son Mark. Bakshi wanted to use pinball as a metaphor to examine the ways of the world. "Heavy Traffic" began a tradition in which Bakshi would write poems before beginning production on each of his films, starting with "Street Arabs". According to Bakshi, "My background was in Brooklyn — my Jewishness, my family life, my father coming from Russia. All these things had to be somehow represented on film."