As Universal would not spend extra money to make an Abbott & Costello in color, the duo opted to do it themselves. Using a contractual agreement with Universal that permitted them to make one independent film per year, they made this film using Abbott's company, Woodley Productions.
In the opening scene of It Started with Eve, an assistant newspaper editor comments that if Jonathan Reynolds Sr. had lived two centuries earlier, he would have made a great pirate - "Captain Kidd himself." Three years later, Charles Laughton, who played Jonathan Reynolds Sr., played the title role in Captain Kidd and again in Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd.