The original trailer was a one-reel recruitment short, running about nine minutes, for the Army Air Corps which included clips from this film.
"Pig Foot Pete", performed by Martha Raye, was a 1942 Academy Award nominee for Best Song. However, on the ballots the song was attributed to Hellzapoppin' (1941), though it never appeared in that film. The Academy has no record of how the error occurred.
This was originally planned for production after Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942). The huge success of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello's previous service comedies, Buck Privates (1941) and In the Navy (1941), caused Universal to produce this first. The War Department also announced a recruitment campaign called "Keep 'Em Flying Week" which Universal could use as a patriotic tie-in.
Maj. Robert Scott was more than just the technical advisor for this film. As the base commander at Cal Aero, the training facility in Ontario, CA, where this film was shot, he would not permit a civilian to perform the scene where a training aircraft is taxied fast through a series of four hangars, which were built end-to-end. In his book, "The Day I Owned the Sky", Scott (author of the book on which God Is My Co-Pilot (1945) is based) revealed that he performed the stunt himself.
The boys finished 1941 in third place on the list of Top 10 Box-Office Stars--the first comedy team to ever appear on the list.