The appearance of the song Abi Gezunt was unscripted. During the club sequence, pianist Alan Douglass was to perform a different piece of music with a clarinetist. However, near the end of a long day of shooting, the clarinetist unexpectedly dropped out of the production. As the scene could no longer be shot as planned, Douglass suggested to Adam Shapiro (Mendy) that they perform Abi Gezunt (a song in Yiddish written in 1938) instead, even though neither had performed together before, and there was no time for a rehearsal. Director Amnon Carmi, and writer Ben Ducoff agreed, and Shapiro and Douglass nailed the performance in one take.
Mitchell Fields, who plays the part of Mickey, was the high school teacher of director and writers Amnon Carmi and Ben Ducoff.
Ben Ducoff (who plays Barry Bernstein) is a real-life Bronx public high school teacher, and he actually teaches the kids who play his students in the film.