 Service With a Smile was originally written as a 14 page short story  called, Backache. It was written by the lead actor, Bill Runyan, for  a writing class he was taking. He told the director, Ken Axmaker,  Jr., how Backache pissed everyone off in his writing class.  Intrigued, Axmaker wanted to read the story, and decided to make the  film with the new title, Service With a Smile. He created the new  title after he read a print off of the short story that didnt  include the original title.