Leave It to Beaver

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Leave It to Beaver
Leave It to Beaver's title screen from 1957 to 1958
Genre	Sitcom
Creator(s)	Bob Mosher Joe Connelly
Starring	Jerry Mathers Hugh Beaumont Barbara Billingsley Tony Dow
Country of origin	USA
No. of episodes	234 (excluding pilot)
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS (season 1) ABC (seasons 2-6)
Original run	October 4, 1957 – September 12, 1963
Links

This article is about the television series. For the 1997 movie, see Leave It to Beaver (film).

Leave It to Beaver is an American television situation comedy that ran from 1957 to 1963. It was produced by Gomalco Productions (1957-1961) and by Kayro Productions (1961-1963), and distributed by Revue Studios.

CBS first aired the show, on October 4, 1957, but decided to drop it within twelve months. ABC, having faith in the series, picked it up, and ran it for another five years, from October 2, 1958 until its September 12, 1963 conclusion.

The show was built around young Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver (played by Jerry Mathers, whose character was given the nickname as a baby when his older brother mispronounced "Theodore" as "Tweedor" and their parents felt "Beaver" was better), and his awkward-but-earnest attempts to navigate older brother Wally's (Tony Dow) pre-teen and teenage growing pains, while heeding his gently-firm-but-loving parents, Ward (Hugh Beaumont) and June Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley).

Adding to the boy's curiosity, chagrin, and education were his own spunky friends, particularly the perpetually apple-munching Larry Mondello (Rusty Stevens) in the early seasons, and Gilbert Bates (Stephen Talbot) in the later seasons; the old fireman, Gus (Burt Mustin), his sweet-natured-but-no-nonsense elementary school teachers, Miss Canfield (Diane Brewster) and Miss Landers (Sue Randall); later, Mrs. Rayburn (Doris Packer); in the early seasons, Beaver's nemesis, Judy Hensler (Jeri Weil); and Wally's pals, equally awkward Clarence (Lumpy) Rutherford (played by Frank Bank) and smart alec Eddie Haskell (Ken Osmond). The archetype of the Janus-like wiseguy who was the rebel among his peers and the obsequious yes man ("Why, good evening, Mrs. Cleaver") to the elders he mocked behind their backs, Haskell ended up becoming at least as iconic as the show itself.

The family lived in the town of Mayfield. Beaver attended Grant Avenue Grammar School, and Wally, Mayfield High School. At Mayfield H.S., Wally lettered in four sports: football, basketball, baseball, and track. Wally's most well-known girlfriends were Julie Foster (Cheryl Holdridge) and Mary Ellen Rogers (Pamela Baird).

Leave It to Beaver often aimed toward a moral lesson and is referenced even now as an emblem of simpler American times. Co-creator Joe Connelly was once quoted as saying he modeled Ward Cleaver's unimpositional style on the kind of father he himself wished to have had^{[citation needed]}; if Ward sometimes seemed possessed of the gentility of a man of the cloth, it may have come from Beaumont's personal influence: he had become an ordained minister before he took up an acting career. (Beaumont also directed a number of the show's episodes in its final two seasons.) June Cleaver, likewise, became a model of the archetypal suburban mother, but that kind of mother assumed a climate in which one parent could run the house while the other earned its keep; that climate had begun to dissipate, for numerous reasons, even while the show held its place in the prime-time lineup.

Years later, some began to reference Leave It to Beaver as an example of a show that had failed to deal with serious topics, as it was produced during an early era before such topics were commonly discussed on television. However, while it is true that this show did not have the kind of progressive themes that a later show like All in the Family had, Leave It to Beaver did have episodes that dealt with the effects of divorce and alcoholism on children.

Contents 1 Syndication 2 Beaver grows up 3 Movie version 4 Trivia 5 DVD Releases 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Syndication

After 234 episodes, Leave It to Beaver ceased first-run production. But the show never really stayed off the air for very long; reruns were part of CBS affiliates' lineups in the mornings for several years to come. TBS showed it for many years in the late 1980s and now it airs on TV Land channel—where it has been shown since July 1998. Today, NBC Universal Television owns the syndication rights and all properties related to the series.

[edit] Beaver grows up

A made-for-television reunion movie, Still the Beaver, appeared in 1983. The main original cast appeared, except for Beaumont, who had died a year earlier. Ward Cleaver was still a presence, however: the film's story used numerous flashbacks to the original show, as it followed young-adult Beaver's struggle to reconcile divorce and newly-minted single fatherhood, straining to cope by what his father might or might not have done, while facing the possibility of his widowed mother selling their childhood home. June Cleaver was later elected to the Mayfield City Council.

It was as if to say that even America's old suburban archetypes did not always have it so perfect, and its reception led to a new first-run, made-for-cable series, The New Leave It to Beaver (1985–89), with Beaver and Lumpy Rutherford running Ward's old firm (where Lumpy's pompous, demanding father—played memorably by Richard Deacon in the original series—had been the senior partner), Wally as a practicing attorney and expectant father, June having sold the old house to Beaver himself but living with him as a doting grandmother to Beaver's two small sons, and Eddie Haskell running his own contracting business and raising a son, Freddie, who was every inch his father's son—right down to the dual-personality.

The most familiar Cleaver house (into which the family moved for the show's third season) can still be seen at Universal Studios, though this is the facade built for the 1996 production of the Leave it to Beaver movie—the original facade sits in storage elsewhere on the Universal lot (it was replaced in 1988 by the Klopek house for the following year's The 'Burbs) and is not shown on the tour. In 1969 it was used as the house for another Universal-produced television hit, Marcus Welby, M.D.. The fictitious Cleaver address was 211 Pine Street, Mayfield, which many believe to have been Mayfield, Ohio.^[1] The address of the house for the first two seasons was 485 Maple Drive, also in Mayfield.

[edit] Movie version

Main article: Leave It to Beaver (film)

1997's movie adaptation of the series starred Christopher McDonald as Ward, Janine Turner as June, Erik von Detten as Wally, and Cameron Finley as Beaver. It was panned by many critics, except for Roger Ebert, who gave it a three-star rating. It flopped at the box office, earning only $11,713,605. Original TV co-stars Barbara Billingsley, Ken Osmond, and Frank Bank made cameo appearances in the film.

[edit] Trivia

• In most polls, the scene most fondly recalled by fans involves Whitey encouraging Beaver to climb into a giant soup bowl mounted on a high-standing billboard in order to see where the smoke comes from. The phrase "Put your foot on the lady's thumb!" became a common punch line, and most show historians agree that the use of this scene in the syndicated advertisements for the show was the major contributor to this scene's high level of remembrance.

• Jerry Mathers got cast as Beaver when the casting directors noticed he was uneasy, and asked him where he'd rather be. Mathers replied that he'd rather be at camp. That authentic boyish youthfulness got Mathers the part of Beaver right away.

• "Beaver died in Vietnam"[1] was a classic urban legend, memorable for its juxtaposition of prelapsarian 1950s imagery with the chaos and violence of the 1960s.

• Another urban legend was that actor Ken Osmond, who played Eddie Haskell, became porn star John Holmes or rock star Alice Cooper.

Actually, John Holmes, an adult movie star, took Ken Osmond's name and did several movies satirically under the name "Eddie Haskell". It started because there was some facial resemblance between the two men, which porn distributors exploited by using the name Eddie Haskell in advertising Holmes's films. "It was a pain in my butt for 11 years," says Osmond, who brought a defamation suit against porn houses, producers and distributors. Mr. Osmond launched a $25 million suit. The suit went all the way to the California Supreme Court. The court ruled for Mr. Holmes, saying the name was protected as a satire. This case set a precedent in the matter, and is still referred by other cases in California today. Ken Osmond, in fact became a cop, serving 18 years with the Los Angeles Police Department.^[2]

There was yet another urban legend that Ken Osmond was Alice Cooper, the rock singer. This originated from a Rolling Stones interview with Alice Cooper. Mr. Cooper stated that he was "Eddie Haskell" as a child. Mr. Cooper was speaking metaphorically, yet some readers interpreted him literally.^{[citation needed]}

• The show made its debut the same day (October 4, 1957) that the Soviets launched the Sputnik.

• Leave It to Beaver's playfully bouncy theme song, which became as much of a show trademark as Beaver's baseball cap or Eddie Haskell's false obsequiousness, was "The Toy Parade," composed by David Kahn, Melvyn Leonard, and Mort Greene. The music seemed to be a kind of answer, if not an inversion, to Charles Gounoud's 1872 composition, "Funeral for a Marionette," adapted as the equally familiar theme to television's Alfred Hitchcock Presents. For Leave It to Beaver's final season, however, the song was given a jazz-like arrangement by veteran jazz and television composer/arranger Pete Rugolo. The lyrics to the theme song are as follows:

Hey! Here they come with a rum-tee tum they're having a toy parade.

A tin giraffe with a fife and drum is leading the kewpie parade.

A gingham cat in a soldier's hat is waving a Chinese fan,

A plastic clown in a wedding gown is dancing with Raggedy Ann.

Fee fie fiddle dee dee they're crossing the living room floor

Fee fie fiddle dee dee they're up to the dining room door.

They call a halt for a choc'late malt or cookies and lemonade

Then off they go with a ho ho ho right back to their toy brigade.

• Barbara Billingsley said that June Cleaver's wardrobe was more than a fashion statement. The pearls hid neck shadows and the high heel shoes were only employed to counter the boys' advancing height.

• Stephen Talbot (Gilbert) continues to work as a reporter for PBS' Frontline. While he may look different after 40 years, his voice is still pure Gilbert.

• The actor who played "Whitey", Stanley Fafara, died in a boarding house in 2005, following a lifelong struggle with drug addiction.

• Before he made Ward Cleaver his acting trademark, Hugh Beaumont sometimes played heavies in film and television. Most familiarly, he played a former convict, Dan Grayson, struggling to go straight and stay there for the sake of his wife and son, in 1953's "The Big Squeeze" TV episode of Adventures of Superman, a few years before Beaver. Beaumont was an ordained Methodist minister, who from 1974 until his death sold live Christmas trees.

• Richard Deacon played Fred Rutherford, Lumpy's pompous and demanding father (and Ward Cleaver's equally pompous and self-satisfied co-worker). Deacon was working a second job for much of the life of Leave It to Beaver: he was concurrently Alan Brady's (Carl Reiner's) bland and bald brother in-law/producer and Buddy Sorrell's Morey Amsterdam's foil on The Dick Van Dyke Show.

• Beaver was born on June 20, 1949, as claimed in a TVLand promotion. The promotion reveals many facts about the Beaver, such as his height (4'5"), his weight (70 pounds), and his eye color (blue), as of September 18, 1957.

• The pilot episode, which aired on April 23, 1957, was entitled It's a Small World.[2] TBS also aired the pilot on Sunday, October 4, 1987, to commemorate the show's 30th anniversary. It featured Casey Adams (instead of Hugh Beaumont) as Ward Cleaver, and Paul Sullivan (instead of Tony Dow) as Wally Cleaver.

• The classroom of Beaver's teacher, Miss Landers, occupied the same space on the Leave It to Beaver set as Ward Cleaver's office.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] DVD Releases

Universal Home Video is releasing Leave it to Beaver on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. They have released Seasons 1 & 2 thus far and it is expected the remaining 4 seasons will be released at some point.

DVD Name	Ep #	Release Date
The Complete 1st Season	39	November 22, 2005
The Complete 2nd Season	39	May 2, 2006
The Complete 3rd Season	39	TBA
The Complete 4th Season	39	TBA
The Complete 5th Season	39	TBA
The Complete 6th Season	39	TBA

[edit] See also

• List of Leave It to Beaver cast members
• List of episodes.

[edit] References

1. ^ info@leaveittobeaver.org. Where did the Cleavers live?. Retrieved on 1 September 2006.
2. ^ Osmond v. EWAP, Inc. (March 28, 1984). Retrieved on [[February 25, 2007]].

[edit] External links

• Leave It to Beaver (1957-1963 TV-series) at the Internet Movie Database
• TV.com
• LeaveIttoBeaver.org
• Litb.com
• www.geocities.com/alcus2/beaver.html
• Tim's TV showcase
• Sitcomsonline.com
• Colonial Street (Beaver house set) history: The studio tour forum discussions
• "Leave It To Beaver: The Complete First Season" (DVD Review)
• "Leave It To Beaver: The Complete Second Season" (DVD Review)
• "The World According To Beaver" (Book Review)
• Leave It To Beaver on TVLand.com