This is the first three-color Technicolor feature to be released by Universal Pictures in the U.S.A.
Sir W.S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan's comic opera "The Mikado or, The Town of Titipu" was their ninth of fourteen collaborations. It opened on March 14, 1885 in London at the Savoy Theatre and ran for 672 performances.
A version of Nanki-poo's famous patter song "I've got a little list" was shot for the film but ultimately deleted because of its controversial (for the time) depiction of Adolf Hitler and reference to Neville Chamberlain. This deleted scene can be viewed on the Criterion Collection DVD.
This film is part of the Criterion Collection, spine #559.