Lead actress Esther Williams married her leading man, Fernando Lamas, 16 years after Traversons La Manche (1953) was filmed. They were married in Europe in 1967, and remained so until Lamas's death in 1982. Esther Williams was married to her second (of four husbands), Ben Gage, while this film was in production.
Gene Siskel cited this as one of his favorite films as a child, and that as an adult he would sing "I Got Out of Bed on the Right Side" to himself to get through stressful situations.
An excerpt from Traversons La Manche (1953) appears in Le tendre piège (1955), starring Debbie Reynolds and Frank Sinatra. When Reynolds is trying to avoid necking with Sinatra, she turns on the TV and they watch a scene of the movie in which Esther Williams and Fernando Lamas swim and kiss.
Cartoon mouse Jerry had previously appeared almost a decade earlier in the MGM musical Escale à Hollywood (1945) with Gene Kelly.
In the underwater sequences in which Esther Williams speaks to Tom and Jerry, Joseph Barbera animated pink bubbles coming from her mouth, an effect that cost $50,000.