Peter Fonda, playing Marley, was edited out of the film shortly before it aired, yet he is still visible in a portrait on a wall in Grudge's study. He also can be glimpsed in a reflection in the glass of a door and silently sitting at the dining room table.
In Rod Serling's original script, the lead character's name was Barnaby Grudge, i.e., B. Grudge, a play on the word "begrudge". ABC censors thought that viewers would miss that allusion (similar initials of B.G.) and instead would believe the name was chosen as a slap at U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential candidate in 1964, and ordered the author to change the character's name. Serling settled on Daniel Grudge. Serling's original name would also have made more sense, because it is a play on another Charles Dickens novel, "Barnaby Rudge."
Originally intended only to be shown on a one-time basis, this movie remained unseen for 48 years, until broadcast on on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) on December 16, 2012. It has since had subsequent showings on TCM.
Everyone involved in this production - all the cast, including the Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Writer Rod Serling, and Composer Henry Mancini - worked for union scale as an expression of their support for its anti-war themes and perceived importance of the program. Sellers, who at the time was reported to charge $750,000 or more, appeared for only $350, the Screen Actors Guild weekly minimum.