Phillips Lord had created the character of preacher and folksy philosopher Seth Parker for a Sunday night series broadcast by NBC Radio. Its popularity led RKO Radio Pictures to purchase the film rights and assign Jane Murfin to write a screenplay with Parker and his wife as the central characters. Originally entitled "Other People's Business", it drew criticism from a studio script reader, who thought the plot was dated and noted, "A story of this type should never take itself seriously, for the day when pictures like "The Old Homestead" 1915 Famous Players film focused on a popular New England vaudevillian would grip the attention of a movie audience is lost forever." The reader cited the commercial failure of "Check and Double Check", a 1930 feature inspired by "Amos 'n' Andy", as proof radio shows did not necessarily adapt well for the screen, and noted most "Seth Parker" listeners were "those people who are interested in the singing of hymns, old folk songs, and a very simple brand of humor" and that the "average young person, between the ages of fifteen and thirty, who form a very large percentage of the movie audiences, do not listen to the broadcast." Despite the readers's misgivings, RKO supervising producer Pandro S. Berman greenlighted the project and budgeted it at $400,000.