Director Howard Hawks was instrumental in the development of screwball comedy, thanks to Twentieth Century (1935), his fast-paced battle of the sexes pitting stage and screen star Carole Lombard against her one-time mentor, producer John Barrymore.

Hawks would continue to exploit Grant's talents for screwball comedy in His Girl Friday (1940), with Rosalind Russell; I Was a Male War Bride (1949), with Ann Sheridan; and Monkey Business (1952), with Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe. In the latter two, he would once again put the actor in women's clothing.

Grant and Hepburn, who had previously co-starred in Sylvia Scarlett, would re-team for two George Cukor films, Holiday (1938) and The Philadelphia Story (1940). The latter film was a major hit that ended Hepburn's days as box-office poison.

Hawks would refer to his 1964 comedy, Man's Favorite Sport? starring Rock Hudson and Paula Prentiss, as a re-make of Bringing Up Baby, at least in spirit. He originally offered the film's male lead to Cary Grant, but Grant did not want to play opposite younger women any more, and Hawks refused to cast older actresses in the female roles.

Director Peter Bogdanovich openly credited Bringing Up Baby as the inspiration for his What's Up, Doc? (1972), a comedy about a strait-laced scientist (Ryan O'Neal) whose life is turned upside down by a madcap young woman (Barbra Streisand). Hawks had actually advised Bogdanovich to show his actors Bringing Up Baby before filming so they wouldn't overplay or exaggerate the comic tone. After the film came out, he told Bogdanovich, "You made a mistake in telling 'em where you stole it from. I didn't tell 'em where I stole it from."

Bringing Up Baby has inspired several contemporary films about free-spirited women liberating pompous young men. Jonathan Demme's 1986 Something Wild features Melanie Griffith as a con artist who breaks through Jeff Daniels' reserve. Madonna's 1987 vehicle, Who's That Girl?, was clearly modeled on the film. The box-office disaster even had the stars involved with a runaway cougar. The 1991 television movie Mimi and Me, starring Terry Farrell of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fame and Broadway singing star Howard McGillin, was a role reversal imitation of the Hawks comedy featuring a female orthodontist with an interest in dinosaur teeth. The sitcom Dharma and Greg (1997-2002), starring Jenna Elfman and Thomas Gibson, also explored the concept on a weekly basis.

by Frank Miller