Sammy Lee took over as dance director after Bobby Connolly got involved as dance director in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
Burns's next film would prove to be a career breakthrough -- only he'd had to wait 36 years for it to happen. Immediately after making Honolulu, he retired from the screen, focusing on his and Allen's long-running radio series. Burns would finally return to the screen in 1975, starring opposite Walter Matthau in an adaptation of the Neil Simon comedy The Sunshine Boys (1975). His performance would win him an Oscar® and set him on a new career course as a character actor.
One member of the Honolulu cast was destined for better things. Although originally announced for a small supporting role, Ruth Hussey instead found herself cast in a glorified bit as Young's leading lady in a film-within-the-film called Women Who Say No. Unhappy with her status at MGM, she was considering leaving, but instead asked for a new screen test to focus on her sex appeal. She must have done something right, because she moved quickly into a scene-stealing, Oscar®-nominated turn as a newspaper photographer in The Philadelphia Story (1940), which in turn led to starring roles.