Doris Day Show

by Michael RichComment — Updated August 3, 2023

Buy The Doris Day Show on DVD

Season 1 (1968)
Season 2 (1969)
Season 3 (1970)
Season 4 (1971)
Season 5 (1972)


Doris Day Show

September 24, 1968 – March 12, 1973
128 1/2 hour episodes (5 seasons)
in color on CBS
Created by: James Fritzell
Produced by: Arwin Productions

CAST

  • Doris Day
  • Paul Smith
  • Patrick O’Neal
  • Klair Bybee
  • Billy De Wolfe
  • Philip Brown
  • Todd Starke
  • Denver Pyle
  • Rose Marie
  • McLean Stevenson
  • Peter Lawford
  • John Dehner
  • Jackie Joseph
  • James Hampton
  • Naomi Stevens
  • Kaye Ballard
  • Bernie Kopell
  • Carol Worthington
  • Fran Ryan
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Doris Martin
Ron Harvey
Jonathan Rusk
Assistant Plant Manager
Willard Jarvis (Seasons 3-5)
Billy Martin (Seasons 1-3)
Toby Martin (Seasons 1-4)
Buck Webb (Seasons 1-2)
Myrna Gibbons (Seasons 1-3)
Michael Nicholson (Seasons 1-3)
Dr. Peter Lawrence (Seasons 4-5)
Cy Bennett (Seasons 4-5)
Jackie Parker (Seasons 4-5)
Leroy B. Simpson (Season 1)
Juanita (Season 1)
Angie Palucci (Season 3)
Louie Palucci (Season3)
Ethel (Season 3)
Aggie Thompson (Season 1)

Opening Theme

Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)
Written and Composed By: Jay Livingston and Ray Evans
Performed By: Doris Day (this was her signature song even before the series began)

Que Sera Sera, Sera Sera,
What ever will be will be,
The future is not ours to see,
Que Sera Sera.
What will be will be.

STORYLINE

This delightful light hearted show started out about a widowed mother who moves from the city to a farm to raise her two boys. But wait she’s working in the city but still lives on the farm, what! she’s living in the city and working, but wait now she’s just single – no kids and dating!!

Let me slow down and take you through all of these very confusing plot twists one at a time.

Season one – Doris Martin (Doris Day) is widowed and moves from the city to a ranch outside of San Francisco to raise her two boys, Billy (Philip Brown) and Toby (Todd Starke). To give the show some girth there was her father Buck (Denver Pyle)a ranch hand and a housekeeper.

The next season has Doris commuting to the city to work for a magazine where the cast would pick up her boss Michael (McLean Stevenson), and a coworker, Myrna (Rose Marie).

The following year Doris decides to cut back on the fossil fuel emissions so she moves the fam to an apartment in the city. (We lose Dad somewhere last season.) Here we add some more cast, Louie and Angie Pallucci (Bernie Kopell; Kaye Ballard) are her new landlords and there is a man next door neighbor Mr. Willard Jarvis (Billy De Wolfe). Wow it’s getting kind of crowed on that set…but hang on!

The last two seasons are just bizarre, everyone is gone except for Mr Jarvis who now owns the building. Doris is not widowed with kids but single and no kids (really they just disappear with no explanation) and she is dating…gasp!

Doris Day had taken over a lot of the executive producer duties so these changes were presumably her choice. By the end of 1973 she announced that she had taken the show as far as she could, plot wise, and that they could continue it if they wanted to but it wouldn’t be with her involvement. The show was promptly canceled.

Video Clip of The Doris Day Show (season 1)

        (Season 5)     

Passings

Billy De Wolfe died in 1974 of lung cancer, he was 67
Todd Starke died suddenly of a motorcycle accident in 1983, he was only 21
Peter Lawford died of kidney and liver failure in 1984, he was 61
Denver Pyle passed away in 1997 of lung cancer, he was 77
McLean Stevenson died of bladder cancer in 1996, he was 68
John Dehner in 1992 of emphysema and diabetes, he was 76
Fran Ryan passed away in 2000, she was 83
Rose Marie died in 2017, she was 94
Sadly, Doris Day passed away naturally at 97, RIP Doris1960s tv

60s family tv

1960s comedy programs

The Doris Day Show - Rose Marie

doris day - Toby              60s family comedy

Doris Day Show - Peter Lawford

1960s family comedy - The Doris Day Show

TRIVIA:

Ok here’s the scoop: Doris Day’s husband signed her up to do this tv show and was getting around to telling her except that he died first.
Doris didn’t really want to do it so she demanded millions of dollars up front. Guess what…..
she got it!
To date no higher up front compensation for a tv show has ever been paid.

1960s family program

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