The "confrontation" sequence (where Jeb and Sport declare they don't have to live with their bickering parents anymore and dive into the pool for good), was actually written by Earl Hamner Jr. to be the climax of the story; it was also used at the beginning because the final version came up a few minutes short (Whit's "Howdy!" greeting as the kids emerge from the "swimming hole" and the tracking shot of the children in Aunt T's yard were repeated as well for the same reason). There was noise interference on the MGM back-lot during the pool sequences, and everyone had to be called back for post-dubbing, but actress Mary Badham had already flown back to Alabama and it was deemed too expensive to fly her back to Los Angeles. June Foray was brought in to dub her lines. It was a "sloppy" job, and Rod Serling knew it. It was held until the very end of the season as the "final" show (where, it was figured, most people wouldn't notice, having tuned out of the series).
Both children speak with Southern accents while their urbane parents have generic American accents. The writer Earl Hamner Jr. (who later created The Waltons (1972)) hearkened back to the children in the film To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). In the film, the children were named Scout and Jem. In this episode, the children are Sport and Jeb. Mary Badham played both Scout and Sport.
This was essentially the series finale as the show was cancelled a short time later in June 1964.
Earl Hamner, who wrote the script for this episode, said that he disliked the characterization of "Aunt T." as played by actress Georgia Simmons. He stated that there were women whom he characterized as "earth mothers," citing actress Patricia Neal as an example of the kind of portrayal he had envisioned for the role, and said that instead he found "Aunt T." as depicted in the episode "too cute." Patricia Neal would go on to create the role of Olivia Walton in the pilot, "The Homecoming," of Hamner's long-running series, "The Waltons."
The swimming pool used in this is the same pool seen in the earlier "Queen of the Nile," and season two's, "The Trouble with Templeton".