Much like its predecessor,Road to Singapore, Road to Zanzibar came about by taking the path of most rejection. Sy Bartlett’s script, Find Colonel Fawcett, had been written as a dramatic adventure about two men on a quest through the jungles of Madagascar. But when the film Stanley and Livingstone beat it to theaters with almost the exact same plot, executives at Paramount decided that their own jungle adventure would come across as too much of a copycat.  For a quick fix, they turned the project over to Frank Butler and Don Hartman, a pair of writers fresh from their success on the Bing Crosby/Bob Hope/Dorothy Lamour picture, Road to Singapore, released the year before. Butler and Hartman turned the film into a comedy – in many ways a parody of Stanley and Livingstone – and the film was once again offered to a pair of Hollywood stars… Fred MacMurray and George Burns (ironically, both had refused to do the first “Road to…” picture). Meeting rejection once again, the idea for a second “Road to…” picture was born and, given the success of the first, Hope, Crosby, and Lamour were once again contracted for a reunion in Road to Zanzibar.

Sideshow artists and bosom buddies Chuck Reardon and Hubert “Fearless” Frazier are forced to flee the South African circus where they perform when their act catches fire… literally! After a few more mishaps, the duo decide to return to the good ol’ U. S. of A., but only after Fearless sells everything they have for a bogus diamond mine. Duped but not downhearted, Fearless sells the phony mine to a crook and flees with Chuck. But soon enough, the two run into a pair of Brooklyn beauties, Donna (Lamour) and Julia (Una Merkel), who con them into financing a jungle safari in search of Donna’s lost brother. When boys learn that the list of the voyage is not a cache of diamonds, they decide it might be best to head back to Zanzibar, but a tribe of cannibals have other plans.

The film’s success was substantial enough to secure the promise of future “Road to…” movies for the profitable leads. Hope and Crosby once again lit up the screen with their improvisational wit. Johnny Burke returned to pen lyrics, this time for musician Jimmy Van Heusen, for songs like “You Lucky People, You,” “You’re Dangerous,” and “It’s Always You.” Five more “Road to…” pictures would follow starting with Road to Morocco a year later.