Woody Allen decided to do his own television film version of his 1966 play, after a belated viewing of Don't Drink the Water (1969), with which he had nothing to do, and which he thought was inferior.
The original Broadway production of "Don't Drink the Water" opened at the Morosco Theater on November 17, 1966, and ran for five hundred ninety-eight performances.
The name of the Eastern European country they are in is never mentioned.