Leave It To Beaver - General Discussion

[TheLastKidPicked]

18 hours ago, HyeChaps said:

My money would be on Lumpy for Most Likely to be Left Back.

 

Funny thing about that is Frank Bank, who played Lumpy, was very successful.

More to the point, his interviews showed him to by happy and well adjusted after leaving acting.

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by TheLastKidPicked

[Egg McMuffin]

On 1/18/2023 at 9:40 PM, One4Sorrow2TooBad said:

When you have friends like Eddie Haskell and Tutti,  no wonder the others didn't get held back more.

Tutti was on The Facts of Life.

[Cobb Salad]

1 minute ago, Egg McMuffin said:

Tutti was on The Facts of Life.

That was Tootie.

[MollyMelrose]

The friend in question is Tooey. 🙂

[GreekGeek]

17 hours ago, TheLastKidPicked said:

 

Funny thing about that is Frank Bank, who played Lumpy, was very successful.

 

 

I always thought it was funny given his name that he was a broker!

[chessiegal]

For fans of the show, fetv is running the end of the show this week and will be back to the pilot next Monday.

[chessiegal]

The show has a different feel to it in the early episodes. Ward isn't all buttoned up in a suit and tie. He wears casual shirts unbuttoned at the top. The Pilot perpetuated the incorrect naming of Smokey Bear as Smokey the Bear. I've read the second episode "Captain Jack" where the boys get a baby alligator was supposed to be the Pilot, but network execs were concerned about showing a toilet on tv. 😅

[chessiegal]

I was reading the Wikipedia article on the show, and they mentioned that in the first season Hugh Beaumont did a voice over outlining what the episode was about, and that when tvland aired the reruns they edited that intro out. I see that fetv is doing the same thing. Got to get those extra commercials in!

[chessiegal]

fetv ran an episode this morning with Eddie Haskell teaching Beaver to tell his new friend whose native language is Spanish that his face looked like a pig. What were the writers thinking? That was horrible.

[peacheslatour]

On 9/18/2023 at 11:03 AM, chessiegal said:

fetv ran an episode this morning with Eddie Haskell teaching Beaver to tell his new friend whose native language is Spanish that his face looked like a pig. What were the writers thinking? That was horrible.

They were think that Eddie Haskell was a piece of crap.

[chessiegal]

14 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

They were think that Eddie Haskell was a piece of crap.

They showed that over and over during the series, but that incident was unnecessary. Totally cruel and insensitive. Way to promote prejudice. Is that the way Americans were in the 60s?

[peacheslatour]

4 minutes ago, chessiegal said:

They showed that over and over during the series, but that incident was unnecessary. Totally cruel and insensitive. Way to promote prejudice. Is that the way Americans were in the 60s?

Yes. A lot of them still are.

[chessiegal]

I watched an episode this morning where Beaver and Larry gave $3 of class cookie money to a lying older boy. Wally's science teacher says he's going to take some of the boys to Mexico for the summer. In the end, kids are acting up in class, and the teacher cancels the Mexico trip, saying he wouldn't even take them to a dog fight. OUCH!! The episode aired in 1959. What were the writers thinking??

ETA: Maybe the writers were thinking he was so mad, he wouldn't take them to something as awful as a dog fight. I think I'll stay with that interpretation.

Edited October 4, 2023 by chessiegal

[TheLastKidPicked]

On 9/21/2023 at 2:39 PM, chessiegal said:

Way to promote prejudice. Is that the way Americans were in the 60s

 

That is one side of the show I find a bit disappointing.  Also the chauvinism played for laughs.

An example is when Wally and Beaver went to play at a friend's house and Beaver says,  "There are two sisters, but they beat it when we threw water at them."

 

 

 

Edited October 4, 2023 by TheLastKidPicked

[chessiegal]

I'm watching Season 4 Episode 39 "Substitute Father" where Beaver calls a kid who tripped him a bad word. I'm coming up empty on what that could be. 

[xwordfanatik]

3 hours ago, chessiegal said:

I'm watching Season 4 Episode 39 "Substitute Father" where Beaver calls a kid who tripped him a bad word. I'm coming up empty on what that could be. 

I'm going to guess "asshole."  😜

[peacheslatour]

19 hours ago, xwordfanatik said:

I'm going to guess "asshole."  😜

On that show? Probably something more like poopyhead.

[xwordfanatik]

12 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

On that show? Probably something more like poopyhead.

Yeah, you're probably right.  It was a different time, for sure!

[chessiegal]

I've given this bad word thing way too much thought. Poking around I found someone who said they've tried reading Beaver's lips with no success. That got me thinking that the show runners wouldn't have young Jerry Mathers using swear words or obscenity in the script and had him say something innocuous, and the mysterious bad word was meant to never be revealed.

[chessiegal]

fetv is airing the last season of the show. My onscreen guide says they will not be airing the series finale and will be starting with the 3rd episode of the series on Friday, 🤷‍♂️

[chessiegal]

I don't understand money on this show. In the episode where Beaver wants an increase in allowance that includes joining a record club, his list of the needs includes a protractor, notebook, and gym socks. First, those are expenses that would not happen weekly, or even monthly. Second, why would a kid be expected to pay for items like that out of his allowance? Those are expenses the parents should take care of. In the episode where Wally buys a car, Wally says it will save money, as Wally can drive Beaver to school and not to have to pay bus fare. They show a typical public school bus in another episode. I don't know anyone who had to pay for using a public school bus. Neither my husband nor I did. 

[Egg McMuffin]

The bad word was probably something like “stinker.”

I don’t like the intro (third season I think) where June and Ward wake the boys up. It’s kind of a weirdly intimate moment that’s an odd choice for a sitcom intro.

[Fool to cry]

My favorite is the last season with the jazzy arrangement of the theme and the family getting into the car to go to a picnic.

I wonder how Barbara Billingsley got first billing? You'd think with the times it would be Hugh Beaumont. Even going by alphabetical order Hugh would be first. I think it's cool her name was first but it is kind of odd.

[peacheslatour]

On 11/8/2024 at 12:40 PM, Fool to cry said:

My favorite is the last season with the jazzy arrangement of the theme and the family getting into the car to go to a picnic.

I wonder how Barbara Billingsley got first billing? You'd think with the times it would be Hugh Beaumont. Even going by alphabetical order Hugh would be first. I think it's cool her name was first but it is kind of odd.

I was amazed when I first got into watching a lot of film noir and gangster movies from the forties and fifties. Who knew Ward was such a badass?

[chessiegal]

On 11/8/2024 at 3:40 PM, Fool to cry said:

I wonder how Barbara Billingsley got first billing? You'd think with the times it would be Hugh Beaumont. Even going by alphabetical order Hugh would be first. I think it's cool her name was first but it is kind of odd.

This is what Google tells me.

Quote

Barbara Billingsley received top billing on "Leave it to Beaver" because she played the central maternal figure, June Cleaver, who represented the idealized "perfect" mother in the show's portrayal of a quintessential 1950s family, making her character the moral compass and primary focus of the storyline; this is a common practice in family sitcoms to give the mother character top billing. 

 

Edited November 24, 2024 by chessiegal

[Dimity]

I've never seen this show before.  Heard about it but never seen it.  It has replaced Dick Van Dyke on a station I get that schedules a lot of old sitcoms and I am torn.  I will miss The Dick Van Dyke Show but I'm looking forward to finally seeing this golden oldie.  Looks like they are starting from the pilot episode.  I've noticed some of the sitcoms they feature get all the episodes aired but some stop at a certain point.  IIRC My Three Sons only aired the first 5 years.

Anyway I hope this show lives up to my expectations!

[chessiegal]

@Dimity I hope you enjoy it. It airs on several channels I get. I've found it interesting to check out the IMDb pages for the episodes. They have interesting background information. One thing to keep in mind is that when this show aired (1957-1963), as was with many shows at the time, each of the 6 seasons has 39 episodes!

ETA: You'll recognize Richard Deacon from The Dick Van Dyke Show. He's a co-worker of Beaver's dad, Ward Cleaver.

Edited January 6 by chessiegal
Additional info

[Fool to cry]

I think it would have been hilarious if in the last season Ward DID clobber the Beaver!

ETA: I'm kidding of course. Its just funny to me that Beaver was always afraid of even being yelled at by his dad at when it has never happened!

Edited January 13 by Fool to cry

[Cobb Salad]

13 hours ago, Fool to cry said:

I think it would have been hilarious if in the last season Ward DID clobber the Beaver!

ETA: I'm kidding of course. Its just funny to me that Beaver was always afraid of even being yelled at by his dad at when it has never happened!

Yeah, especially for the number of times Beaver got egged on by his supposed friends do stupid things and get in trouble.  You’d think he’d learn.  One example:  the episode “In the Soup”. 

[peacheslatour]

6 hours ago, Cobb Salad said:

Yeah, especially for the number of times Beaver got egged on by his supposed friends do stupid things and get in trouble.  You’d think he’d learn.  One example:  the episode “In the Soup”. 

Larry Mondello was the worst offender. But all of his friends were guilty. I wish just once, the Beav would have talked one of them into doing something stupid.

[chessiegal]

22 hours ago, Cobb Salad said:

Yeah, especially for the number of times Beaver got egged on by his supposed friends do stupid things and get in trouble.  You’d think he’d learn.  One example:  the episode “In the Soup”. 

Larry Mondello wasn't the instigator in that episode, it was Whitey.

From IMDb:

Quote

Wally's worries that little brother Beaver will disrupt the first teen party held at the Cleaver's house are realized when, on the way to the Whitney's house for a sleepover, Beaver takes a dare from Whitey to find out if there really is soup in a steaming billboard bowl.

IMDb notes it was the most expensive episode of the series to produce - $40,000. Jerry Mathers says it is memorable to him because he's afraid of heights.

[chessiegal]

The character Larry Mondello left the show in 1960. The soup episode aired in 1961. 

Various reasons are given for the actor leaving: his parents moved to Pennsylvania, his mother was a bothersome stage mother that producers didn't want to deal with, and the actor no longer wanted to be in show business.

[peacheslatour]

On 1/14/2025 at 7:44 AM, chessiegal said:

The character Larry Mondello left the show in 1960. The soup episode aired in 1961. 

Various reasons are given for the actor leaving: his parents moved to Pennsylvania, his mother was a bothersome stage mother that producers didn't want to deal with, and the actor no longer wanted to be in show business.

I don't think anybody mentioned Larry Mondello in connection with that episode.

[NickDG1]

What did Ward Cleaver really do for a living?

Up-board in this thread someone referred to Ward as an engineer. Or, was he an accountant or maybe even a lawyer?  Ward, always talked of his work as simply being at the, "Office." While Fred Rutherford always called it being down at the, "The salt mines," or sometimes, "the coal mines."

But, I think this screen grab I took (I don't remember the episode) finally spills the beans! Look at the wall and the upper framed certificate. It says Ward Cleaver is a member of the Stock Exchange. And wouldn't that make him a stock broker? And I do recall once that Ward said something about having million dollar clients. 

Did I finally solve this long time TV mystery?

 
 

[chessiegal]

I wouldn't put much stock (pun intended) in that certificate. The show was purposely vague on what Ward did.

This is from Wiki:

Quote

Ward is an archetypical white-collar, briefcase-toting professional of the 1950s. He wears a business suit, works in an office with a view of a metropolitan area, has a secretary named Grace, and leaves home early in the morning and returns in the early evening. He works for a "big company" with main offices in New York City. He drives to work in his Plymouth unless June needs the car during the day for an errand. He is home on weekends for golfing at a local country club. Occasionally, Ward is required to do some office work at home. In one early episode, for example, he works at home on a women's marketing survey. His co-worker and friend is Fred Rutherford, a smug, pompous man who refers to the workplace as "the salt mine"

 

[TheLastKidPicked]

Trying to read between the lines. . . 

We just watched "One of the Boys" where Wally and Eddie are invited to join an exclusive school club.

It's a much more serious episode than usual.  Ward and June repeatedly discuss if they should disallow Wally to join.  Ward states,  "It's his decision and he needs to decide on his own".  It is clear Ward disapproves although they don't say why.

When Wally leaves for the meeting, both Ward and June stop him repeatedly, on the verge of asking him not to go.

Was this some kind of club that they couldn't say out loud on the show?  Such as a "whites only" club?  Or a "no Jews allowed" type of club?  It seemed like the writers wanted us to fill in the blanks as they couldn't say it out loud.

What do you think?  And do you agree it was a different tone than any other episode?

 

 

 

[chessiegal]

18 hours ago, TheLastKidPicked said:

Trying to read between the lines. . . 

We just watched "One of the Boys" where Wally and Eddie are invited to join an exclusive school club.

It's a much more serious episode than usual.  Ward and June repeatedly discuss if they should disallow Wally to join.  Ward states,  "It's his decision and he needs to decide on his own".  It is clear Ward disapproves although they don't say why.

When Wally leaves for the meeting, both Ward and June stop him repeatedly, on the verge of asking him not to go.

Was this some kind of club that they couldn't say out loud on the show?  Such as a "whites only" club?  Or a "no Jews allowed" type of club?  It seemed like the writers wanted us to fill in the blanks as they couldn't say it out loud.

What do you think?  And do you agree it was a different tone than any other episode?

 

 

 

I have seen every episode of this show. I had to refer to the IMDb entry to refresh my memory. This episode was in Season 5 (of 6 seasons) and aired in 1962. The Cleavers lived in a very white world. The one time I remember seeing anyone of color was a maid when Wally and Eddie were parking cars at a wedding reception. And there was an episode where Beaver is friends with a Latino boy.

I suppose the writers could have been alluding to no Blacks or Jews, but I think they were just showing that a Wally who was old enough to make his own decisions needed to assess what the cool club (The Barons) were about and whether he should join or not. The episode description says The Barons were about fast cars and girls. I think it was just about a teenager deciding there are more important things in life than hanging with a perceived "cool" gang.

[Dimity]

On 4/18/2025 at 6:12 PM, TheLastKidPicked said:

Was this some kind of club that they couldn't say out loud on the show?  Such as a "whites only" club?  Or a "no Jews allowed" type of club?  It seemed like the writers wanted us to fill in the blanks as they couldn't say it out loud.

Your description reminded me of a similar episode on My Three Sons where Chip is going through a hazing in order to join what he thinks of as a cool club at school.  He ends up realizing that the requirements for the club have gone beyond silly pranks and decides on his own not to join.  Steve acts somewhat similarly to Ward and June in that while he disapproves of the club he also feels Chip needs to figure it out for himself. 

Basically though it was just a club made up of self important teens who thought they were cool.

[peacheslatour]

On 4/18/2025 at 3:12 PM, TheLastKidPicked said:

Trying to read between the lines. . . 

We just watched "One of the Boys" where Wally and Eddie are invited to join an exclusive school club.

It's a much more serious episode than usual.  Ward and June repeatedly discuss if they should disallow Wally to join.  Ward states,  "It's his decision and he needs to decide on his own".  It is clear Ward disapproves although they don't say why.

When Wally leaves for the meeting, both Ward and June stop him repeatedly, on the verge of asking him not to go.

Was this some kind of club that they couldn't say out loud on the show?  Such as a "whites only" club?  Or a "no Jews allowed" type of club?  It seemed like the writers wanted us to fill in the blanks as they couldn't say it out loud.

What do you think?  And do you agree it was a different tone than any other episode?

 

 

 

Yes, I think they were concerned about the exclusionary nature of certain clubs. Not necessarily against any ethnicities, more like they thought they were snobbish.

[TheLastKidPicked]

Thank you all for your responses.  I knew you'd have good information to share.

Many of these episodes really do stand up, even all these years later.

 

[NickDG1]

Well, my theory of Ward being a stock broker went out the window in S5, E38 called 'Stocks and Bonds.' Ward tries explaining stocks and bonds to the boys and it turns out June knows more about the subject than Ward does.