When Leonid Gaidai presented the film to the censors, he added a nuclear explosion footage into the epilogue, and refused to remove it, and only agreed after an extensive argument. This allowed him to sneak in some controversial (by the USSR's measures) material such as striptease, drunken debauchery and references to prostitution.
The scenes in the "Eastern city" were to be shot in Turkey. However, the director Leonid Gaidai decided to shoot this part of the film in Baku (Azerbaijan, USSR) due to limited financial resources.
The well-known quote of the film, "I won't be surprised if we are to find out your husband is secretly seeing a mistress," was originally, "I won't be surprised if we are to find out your husband is secretly going to synagogue." However, the Communist Party Committee of Ideology banned the phrase, because they felt it was "too anti-Semitic for the USSR". The phrase was re-dubbed, however, the original meaning can be easily spotted by looking at actors lips.
The film gained a cult status in the USSR after its release and after many years is still considered to be the number one comedy in Russia.
The director, Leonid Gaidai appears 3 times in the movie playing the drunkard, an old man and the hand in the dream scene.