First of two movies pairing Don Knotts and Darren McGavin. The pair later co-starred in Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978) - another Walt Disney Pictures production. Later, both, Don Knotts and Darren McGavin passed away within a few hours of each other on Saturday 25th February 2006.
Don Knotts said that one day that while he was filming scenes for this project in the San Francisco airport, a director approached him and said he would like to cast him in a more dramatic film. Although this never happened, Knotts said he was flattered by the offer. The director was Sam Peckinpah.
A picture of "Herbie" from The Love Bug (1969) doing a wheelie is on the wall in Bert and Duke's living room among other racing pictures. Don Knotts, who played Bert, later co-starred with Dean Jones as Herbie's mechanic Wheely Applegate in Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977). Charles Martin Smith, who played Longnecker, later portrayed D.J. in Herbie Goes Bananas (1980).
This movie is "very loosely" based on two stories by O. Henry - "A Retrieved Reformation" (1903) and ''The Ransom of Red Chief" (1907).
The movie's lead cast members all had first names beginning with the letter ''D'' - Don Knotts, David Niven and Darren McGavin.