The first musical that Timothy Omundson can recall seeing is Fiddler on the Roof (1971), and as a youngster he used the song "If I Were a Rich Man" to audition with. The song was the inspiration for "If I Were a Jolly Blacksmith."
ABC executives balked at the wildly politically incorrect lyrics that Glenn Slater originally penned for the democracy song "Build a New Tomorrow" and insisted upon heavy rewrites.
For the production number "Build a New Tomorrow," the crew briefly panicked when they found themselves short one person for a shot in which the camera pans down a line of dancers. To solve the problem, they had the first dancer in line quickly run behind the camera so he could also appear as the last in the line.