Road to Zanzibar

The second of the seven Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour "Road" films.

Originally, this film was not supposed to be a sequel to "Road to Singapore (1940);" in fact, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope were not even supposed to be in it. The film was first offered to Fred MacMurray and George Burns, who both rejected it. While assembling a list of contract "Paramount" stars to offer it to, someone at the studio remembered that "Road to Singapore" had done relatively well, and Hope and Crosby "seemed to work well together", so it was offered to them. The rest, as they say, is history.

Nominated in 1941 for "Best Picture" by the National Board of Review but did not win.

Chuck refers to dollars as " Morgenthau mashnotes". When this film was made, Henry Morgenthau, Jr. was the US Secretary of the Treasury, and had been the architect of the New Deal which brought us out of the Great Depression. All US paper money printed at that time bore the signature of Morgenthau.

One of over 700 Paramount productions, filmed between 1929-49, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since. Its initial television presentation took place in Seattle on 17 January 1959 on KIRO (Channel 7); it next launched the MCA/Paramount Film Library in Albany, New York 15 March 1959 on WAST (Channel 13); it first aired in Grand Rapids 3 August 1959 on WOOD (Channel 8) and in New York City 13 September 1959 on WCBS (Channel 2). In Columbus it was broadcast 26 September 1959 on WBNS (Channel 10) as a promotional preview to inaugurate their purchase of the MCA/Paramount Film Library; in Milwaukee it first aired 7 October 1959 on WITI (Channel 6), in Minneapolis 19 October 1959 on WTCN (Channel 11), in Asheville 13 November 1959 on WLOS (Channel 13), in Boise 4 January 1960 on KBOI (Channel 2), in Cleveland 3 March 1960 on WJW (Channel 8), and in Philadelphia 12 March 1960 on WCAU (channel 10). It was released on DVD 5 March 2002 as part of Universal's "Bob Hope: The Tribute Collection", again 4 May 2004 as part of Universal's "On the Road with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby Collection", and again 11 November 2014 as one of 24 titles in Universal's "Bing Crosby Silver Screen Collection"; since that time it has enjoyed frequent presentations on cable TV on Turner Classic Movies.