I can't honestly say it's a show I ever watched much, but I always liked it when I did. I feel like it's gotten a raw deal over the years by becoming a codeword for all the things that were supposedly wrong with the 50's. TV Land will be airing a 24-hr marathon starting 8pm 10/6 including the rarely-shown (by TV Land, says TV Land) pilot. Here's an interview with Mathers about the anniversary.

LEAVE IT TO BEAVER was everything RIGHT about '50s family sitcoms! The writing is really elegant and sharp. Plots are natural and inventive within the confines of the suburban utopia, the writing for the kids is funny and dead-on, and the parents are well-meaning but make believable, slight parenting missteps, and then admit when they're wrong. Even if it doesn't have the whirligig character experts of LUCY or THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, BEAVER is perfect gentle comedy.

I love the show, which was a breakthrough at the time in its realistic portrayal of the way kids talked. I remember moments from my own childhood in ways that are completely in keeping with episodes of LITB. I do think the show was unnecessarily tamed as it moved into its final season -- TV wasn't yet ready to bring realistic teenagers into people's homes, at least not in a kids' show.

I find it funny, though, that, as Jerry Mathers became more self-conscious as an actor, his acting became more melodramatic. In the last season of LITB, he acts a lot like what we then would have called "a little hood." Seeing these episodes again recently, I told myself more than once that he must have been under the impression that he was acting on THE UNTOUCHABLES, the way he always looked down his nose and gave knowing little "wiseguy" nods of his head as he sneered out his lines.

First quote - but it was approaching teenage realism with a little angst thrown in for good measure...

The episode I'm remembering is the one where Wally takes a girl to the prom where they're accosted by a drunk (an adult, I believe) but introducing alcohol abuse - particularly into a teen setting - must have been groundbreaking on some level. And Wally's disappointment in the adult world is evident and confused particularly as he approaches adulthood himself. IF they really wanted to approach teen realism, the drunk would've been one of Wally's classmates...

Second quote - I'm not saying Jerry Mathers was necessarily this in tune and self-reflective (but then again, maybe he was), but his mannerisms during that last season almost seemed fitting for a boy diving head first into the murky waters of adolescence. Beaver's only real choice - he wasn't nearly as athletic or as popular as older bother Wally - was to take on the persona of tough guy...just to maneuver through that dicey time of life...

Hey, it worked for me. Now nobody touch my stuff, or I'll cut ya!

Chris, you're probably right and I appreciate the perspective. And Jerry Mathers was or is a MENSA member, so I wouldn't put that sort of self-awareness past him.

Another little-known detail I always like to mention whenever "LEAVE IT TO BEAVER" is discussed is that Barbara Billingsley had what she felt was an unsightly surgical scar on her neck, and it was her idea to wear a strand of pearls to cover it up.

Thus it was personal vanity, and not some evil producer's chauvanistic attempt at putting out an unrealistic image of suburban housewives, that brought us the sight of Mrs. Cleaver doing housework while wearing jewelry. I know I defused a lot of blowhard social critics in college with that little nugget. :rolleyes:

I'm very happy to read all the positive comments on this thread. BEAVER gets blasted by so many (including some who have never sat down and actually watched it) for being a naive, unrealistic picture of the 1950s. You guys have already pointed out why it was, and remains, a good show worth re-watching. The dialog for the kids is spot-on right and genuinely funny. Personally, I think this is one of the funniest shows from its period and that is the main reason I watch it. The boys, and their friends Larry, Whitey, Lumpy, Judy and the great Eddie Haskell never cease to amuse me.

Coincidentally, I just watched a TV crime drama called "The Frightened Witness" with Dan Duryea and Barbara Billingsley as his wife. That was just before BEAVER had its debut.

Something I recently found out - that the characters of Tooey Brown and Whitey Whitney were real life brothers. Tooey was played by Tiger Fafara and Whitey was played by Stanley Fafara.

According to the IMDB, Stanley's life after BEAVER was terrible (he died in 2003 living in a skidrow area of Portland):

Stanley Fafara

She also appears in an early episode, maybe the first, of Louis Hayward's series THE LONE WOLF. She might have gotten stuck in TV noir as femme fatales if not for LEAVE IT TO BEAVER!

Yes, it's terrible about Fafara, I had forgotten. The kid seemed to have comic timing

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Has anyone seen the original BEAVER pilot? It's on the Season 1 DVD set.

Max Showalter (Casey Adams) as Ward Cleaver. Worth a look, but they definitely improved the show by airtime.

And Harry Shearer!

One of the things I always loved about the show was that Beaver or Wally always had the last word. The didactic speech by Ward was always in the penultimate scene, which was always followed by the kids discussing what they had learned. Inevitably, their "lesson" was a completely inverted reiteration of the "theme," usually expressing the absurdity of the adult perspective on human behavior.

And yes, Eddie Haskell was one of the great sitcom characters of all time. He and Lumpy Rutherford were perfect embodiments of what blowhard teenagers look like to kids Beaver's age.

Here's a link to a recent appearance on Good Morning America by Barbara Billingsley, Jerry Mathers, Tony Dow, Ken Osmond, and Frank Bank.

http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1...annel=370335716

Unfortunately, Osmond doesn't discuss the two great urban legends about him: He became a porno star AND He became Alice Cooper. He was actually a retired cop that had been shot a couple of times.

I think Osmond's Eddie Haskell belongs on a Mount Rushmore of sitcoms' brilliant second bananas with Ed Norton, Barney Fife, and Cosmo Kramer. (I'd try to squeeze Reverend Jim in there too.)

I also enjoyed the bantering between Ward Cleaver and Fred Rutherford, as incarnated by Richard Deacon. Fred's myopic picture of Clarence was almost endearing.

Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher had an interesting career in radio and television. They worked on AMOS AND ANDY, LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, and THE MUNSTERS. THE MUNSTERS hasn't held up as well as BEAVER, but its still glorious in its own way. I see very little similarites in its humor and BEAVER, though.

An interesting movie written and produced by Connelly and Mosher was THE PRIVATE WAR OF MAJOR BENSON, where Charlton Heston is exiled to a military academy for his hubristic statements about the military. There are many similarities to the upcoming BEAVER, particularly the depiction of the kids. Tim Considine is very good as an unlikeable weasel, but the heart of the picture is the very endearing Tim Hovey as Tiger Flaherty. (Hovey wasn't in any thing else of note, but later became a road manager for the Grateful Dead for a couple of decades and died of a heroin overdose.) It's also fun to see Heston in a role that pokes fun at his typical leading role and Julia Adams in a light comedy. It's not anything ESSENTIAL, but it's definitely worthwhile if you stumble on it on cable. (Avoid the horrible remake MAJOR PAYNE.)