Anecdotes

Ben Stiller's cinema acting debut.

First big-screen appearance of real-life father and son Jerry Stiller and Ben Stiller together in the same movie, portraying father and son.

The film is inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (1883) which is mentioned several times in the film by both John Cusack and Robert Loggia. Cusack is the young steward character and Loggia the captain of the ship character. The pirates in this case are the father and son team of Jerry Stiller and Ben Stiller, who are real life father and son. The damsel in distress is Wendy Gazelle, who plays Cusack's girlfriend in the film and who can be loosely claimed as being the treasure as well.

Tom Mankiewicz, who was the creative consultant on the film, did an uncredited re-write on the film.

'The New York Times' review said that the movie "makes L'île aux naufragés (1964) look like La nuit de l'iguane (1964)".

Frank Tidy: The film's cinematographer as a Britisher.