When this film was shown on Turner Classic Movies, Danny Kaye's daughter Dena Kaye said that her father found the hardest thing about this movie was learning to appear so bad as a boxer, stating that "being good enough to act inept" was the hardest acting he had ever done.
The name of the lead character, "Burleigh" is an inside joke since it sounds like "burly" which means 'strongly and heavily built, husky' which the character is not.
The play on which this film is based, "The Milky Way", opened on Broadway in 1934. It was a flop, only running for 63 performances before closing. Harold Lloyd made it into a vehicle for himself, The Milky Way (1936), which was also a flop. This Danny Kaye vehicle, made ten years later, was a success.
Co-stars Eve Arden and Lionel Stander were regulars on Danny Kaye's radio show.