With Six You Get Eggroll

With Six You Get Eggroll is a family comedy from 1968, starring Doris Day and Brian Keith. Other cast members include George Carlin, Jamie Farr, William Christopher, Barbara Hershey, Alice Ghostley and Pat Carroll.

Day plays Abby McClure, a widow working in a lumber yard who has three sons. Later, she meets widower Jake Iverson (Keith) who has a teenage daughter. They start dating and decide to get married. They're not prepared for the hostile reactions from their children, especially Jake's daughter Stacy, who wants to be the woman of the house, and Abby's oldest son Flip, who hates Jake.

The musical group Grass Roots make a cameo appearance in this film. It was also Doris Day's final acting appearance in a film.

Upon her husband's death, Day learned that he had committed her to a TV series, which became The Doris Day Show. "It was awful," Day told OK! Magazine in 1996. "I was really, really not very well when Marty passed away, and the thought of going into TV was overpowering. But he'd signed me up for a series. And then my son Terry took me walking in Beverly Hills and explained that it wasn't nearly the end of it. I had also been signed up for a bunch of TV specials, all without anyone ever asking me."

Day hated the idea of doing television, but felt obligated. "There was a contract. I didn't know about it. I never wanted to do TV, but I gave it 100 percent anyway. That's the only way I know how to do it." Melcher died on April 20, 1968, and the first episode of the TV show was aired on September 24, 1968.

From 1968 to 1973, The Doris Day Show aired with "Que Sera, Sera" as its theme song. Day grudgingly continued but only as long as she needed the work to help pay off her debts and only after CBS had ceded creative control to Day and her son. Fortunately for her, the show was successful, and functioned as a lead-in to the equally successful Carol Burnett Show. Despite its successful run, today Day's show is chiefly remembered for its dramatic changes in casting and premise from season to season. It has not been as widely syndicated as many of its contemporaries, and has been little seen in markets outside the U.S. and Britain.

In addition to her series, in 1971 and 1974 Day completed two TV specials. She also appeared in one of John Denver's TV specials (1974) parodying her (and his) sunny public image to good effect. By the end of the TV series in 1973, Day was nearing 50, and public tastes had changed to such a degree that her firmly established wholesome persona was now completely out of fashion. She essentially retired from acting when The Doris Day Show ended, but the popularity of Doris Day is still widespread to this day.