This film was originally developed as a Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy vehicle, but was re-scripted after Stan Laurel, whose contract with Hal Roach had run out, declined to re-sign with the producer. Hardy's contract was still in force, and the team believed that if they waited until it expired, they could re-sign as a team and be in a stronger bargaining position. Ultimately that is what happened.
In the early 1990s, Video Treasures released this film under their Laurel & Hardy Classics Collection banner, even though Stan Laurel isn't in this movie, being replaced by Harry Langdon, and Oliver Hardy does not play his 'Ollie' character. However, it was packaged with their classic short subject Laughing Gravy (1930).
Hal Roach Studios approached Walter Winchell about filming an introduction to the film's trailer, calling it "The first full-length feature to incorporate the principles of the Bill of Rights as a motivating force of the story". Winchell declined.
This film was first telecast in Los Angeles Sunday 15 August 1948 on KTLA (Channel 5), in New York City Sunday 17 October 1948 on WPIX (Channel 11), in Detroit Sunday 30 January 1949 on WWJ (Channel 4), in Cincinnati Tuesday 23 August 1949 on WCPO (Channel 7), and in Atlanta Wednesday 24 August 1949 on WSB (Channel 8) as part of their newly acquired series of three dozen Hal Roach feature film productions, originally theatrically released between 1931 and 1943, and now being syndicated for television broadcast by Regal Television Pictures.
This was almost the only time Oliver Hardy made a film without longtime comedy partner Stan Laurel. After Laurel refused to sign a new contract in 1937, producer Hal Roach decided to try pairing Ollie with Harry Langdon, who had been a major comedy star in the silent era. But "Zenobia" was such a spectacular box office bomb that Laurel and Hardy were reunited all but immediately, and they continued working as a team until they both retired in 1950. Hardy died in 1957, and Laurel in 1965.