In New York City in the early 1950s, Jerry Biffle (Phil Silvers) is the star of the Blendo Soap Program.

He meets Sally Peters (Judy Lynn), one of the department store models, and makes her part of his TV troupe.

As part of his campaign to court Sally, Jerry gets Cliff Lane (Danny Scholl), the tenor of his TV company, to sing to her over the phone.

After concluding its successful engagement on Broadway in 1952, Top Banana went on tour for a year playing in major cities across the country.

Phil Silvers and the cast finished their successful run at the Biltmore Theatre in downtown Los Angeles.

During that engagement, Harry Popkin negotiated with producers Albert Zugsmith (Touch of Evil, The Incredible Shrinking Man) and Ben Peskay to film the show exactly as it had been presented on stage in sold-out performances across the country.

[1] Zugsmith and Peskey decided to film it in 3-D, the popular trend at the time, with the idea in mind that this approach would give the entire audience a choice seat at a top Broadway show, for merely the price of a movie ticket.

It would go to the box office and buy tickets, enter the lobby and proceed down to a seat in the third row, center stage.

This elaborate opening was abandoned in favor of a static shot of the theater marquee, which then dissolves directly into the stage show.

Unfortunately for the producers, the film was in post-production in September 1953 just as The Robe and CinemaScope hit theaters, and 3-D was starting to decline at the box office.

[citation needed] The film was photographed in Eastmancolor, and processed by the Color Corporation of America laboratory in Burbank, California.