During a special preview screening, Alfred Hitchcock's only criticism of the film to Mel Brooks was that in the shower scene, when the shower curtain is torn off the rail, they used 13 shower curtain rings, whereas in Psycho (1960), they used only 10.
Alfred Hitchcock proposed a scene for the film in which the killer would chase Thorndyke to the harbor, where Thorndyke would try to escape by taking a running jump onto a boat in the water, only to realize the boat was pulling in to the docks. Mel Brooks loved the idea, but was unable to film it due to budget and time constraints.
Mel Brooks once said of Alfred Hitchcock "Anyone who has ever rolled a foot of film owes something to this man."
This tribute to Alfred Hitchcock contains references to more than 10 of his films. Mel Brooks held a private preview of the movie for Hitchcock to see his reaction. When Hitchcock walked out at movie's end without saying a word, Brooks feared that Hitchcock hated the movie. But days later, Hitchcock sent a congratulatory case of wine to Brooks, knowing that Brooks was a wine connoisseur, and declared the film "Splendid! I wish I had done it."
Mel Brooks hired the actual bird handler from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) for work on this picture.