This was the first of what would eventually be 11 films featuring Henry Aldrich, who had been the central character in a popular radio series. Jackie Cooper starred in the first two films, and was then replaced by Jimmy Lydon for the other nine entries. Paramount unofficially considered the Aldrich franchise to be their equivalent of M-G-M's incredibly popular Andy Hardy series. Though never as successful as the Hardy movies, the Aldrich films were never-the-less lucrative for Paramount, and today seem far less hokey and dated than their M-G-M counterparts.
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; its earliest documented telecast took place in Seattle Thursday 2 April 1959 on KIRO (Channel 7).
What A Life opened at the Biltmore Theater on April 13, 1938 and ran for 538 performances.