The “eggroll” of the title was often spelled “egg roll” in the press and in studio publicity releases.
       With Six You Get Eggroll began as a proposal for a television series by veteran husband-and-wife teleplay writers Gwen Bagni and Paul Dubov, the 23 Sep 1965 DV reported. The couple based the idea “on their own marriage and their kids’ approval of the merger between previously widowed Gwen and Paul.”
       CBS Theatrical Films, a new feature film-producing subsidiary of the Columbia Broadcasting System, announced that it planned to make twenty-two movies at a combined estimated budget of $60 million, according to the 25 Oct 1967 LAT. Four months earlier, the 19 Jun 1967 DV mentioned that the company’s first production would be With Six You Get Eggroll, starring Doris Day in the first of her multi-film deal with CBS Theatrical Films, to be produced by her husband, Martin Melcher.
       The 3 Jan 1968 DV stated that Doris Day and Brian Keith were reporting that day to the CBS Studio Center, the former Republic Studios in Studio City, CA, for the start of principal photography.
       An item in the 3 Mar 1968 LAT revealed that for the movie’s “Iverson-McClure” house, Martin Melcher built on Stage 12 a $75,000 replica of a Toluca Lake, CA, “dream house” that his wife often gazed at early in their marriage. He presented the finished set as a surprise to her.
       The 1 Mar 1968 LAT recounted a scene, filmed a few days earlier, with 300 “squawking chickens” loose on Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley. Director Howard Morris pointed out that along with the chickens, there were stunt men falling off motorcycles and flying over their handlebars, but the only safety monitor was a man from the American Humane Society. Nobody was “on hand to keep an eye on the stunt men, not even an insurance guy,” Morris said. He told the reporter, “The kids are actually the heavies in the film. They’ve been behaving like adults and now, with the re-marriage, they’ve got a full set of parents so they’re kids again and they hate it.”
       With Six You Get Eggroll marked the feature film debuts of comedian George Carlin and television actress Barbara Hershey. It was also the final feature film for Doris Day and Martin Melcher, who died 20 Apr 1968, shortly after filming ended.
       Robert Mersey, the film’s musical composer and conductor, was a record producer for several Columbia Records artists, including Barbra Streisand and Johnny Mathis. With Six You Get Eggroll was his first film. The 2 May 1968 DV noted that the film’s main theme, “Stick Your Neck Out,” was taken from a defunct musical he wrote with Robert Hilliard. However, it is uncertain whether the song was in the film.
       With Six You Get Eggroll was given a “sneak preview” in Salt Lake City, UT, on 28 Jun 1968, the 3 Jul 1968 Var reported. It had its world premiere at three Boston, MA, cinemas on 7 Aug 1968, according to the 19 Aug 1968 DV and 4 Sep 1968 Var. The film grossed $165,000 in Boston over the first three weeks. It opened on 21 Aug 1968 in nineteen theaters and nine drive-ins in Los Angeles, CA, where the first week’s box-office take was $220,000. The 11 Sep 1968 Var announced that after four weeks in general release, the film had grossed $1.2 million. It did not open in New York City until 9 Oct 1968, reportedly because another Doris Day movie, M-G-M’s New York-themed Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1968, see entry), was playing at the Radio City Music Hall there.
       Although the newly expanded CBS Studio Center continued to thrive, CBS’s Cinema Central Films lasted only four years after its With Six You Get Eggroll introduction. The 10 Jan 1972 NYT reported that CBS board chairman William S. Paley was ending production as soon as the remaining film projects were finished. According to a spokesman, financial losses from unsuccessful films, which in 1971 alone were more than $10 million, made CBS’s venture “economically hazardous.”