Jackie Cooper was under contract to Hal Roach Studios at $50 per week, and was loaned to Paramount for $25,000.
After Jackie Cooper was hired for the part, he and his mother read many of the comic strips and other long-running features to help him get to know the character. He thought the costume he would have to wear was rather silly, but understood that it was a basic feature that couldn't be changed.
One of over 700 Paramount productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since. However,because of legal complications, this particular title was not included in the original television package and was not televised until many years afterward.
The only film based on a comic book, comic strip, or graphic novel to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.
To induce crying, Jackie Cooper was fooled into it by director Norman Taurog - his uncle, having married the sister of Jackie's mother. Taurog yelled out, "Where's that dog? Just go shoot him!" (the dog was Jackie's own dog). Somebody who got a gun with a blank in it went behind the truck where the dog had been taken and fired the gun. It worked, though a little too well. It took Jackie a very long time to stop crying, even after the scene was over and the director tried to kindly tell him they were just fooling; they only did that to get Jackie to cry for the scene. In addition, Jackie said he lost a lot of respect for his uncle that day.