Leave It To Beaver - General Discussion

[LucyEth]

The more I watch the reruns of the early shows the more I think Wally sounds like a gangster.  He sounds very nasal and that combined with his delivery style has me wanting to hear him say "you dirty rat"!

[TheLastKidPicked]

On 3/26/2019 at 11:32 AM, peacheslatour said:

Is it just me or did the Beav kind of turn into a real dick toward the end of the series?

The problem was they kept writing Beaver as if he was still a little kid instead of a teenager.  And the things that were cute when he said them as a kid were just awkward or annoying when he tried to say the same lines as a teenager.

[TheLastKidPicked]

On 4/18/2019 at 4:59 PM, LucyEth said:

The more I watch the reruns of the early shows the more I think Wally sounds like a gangster.  He sounds very nasal and that combined with his delivery style has me wanting to hear him say "you dirty rat"!

That's true!

Lucky for Tony Dow that he aged very well through his teenage years, and seemed to skip that "awkward stage" that we saw with Jerry Mathers. 

[LucyEth]

As the show went on Beaver's storylines were awful, he was obnoxious.  I liked Wally and his group of friends much better.  The only friend of Beaver I liked was Larry.  As the show went on they should have changed the name to the "The Cleavers".

[Wavy]

I agree about Beaver's friends.  Especially Richard and Gilbert:  They were often, as Beav would put it: "Rats."

[peacheslatour]

4 hours ago, Wavy said:

I agree about Beaver's friends.  Especially Richard and Gilbert:  They were often, as Beav would put it: "Rats."

They were all little creeps and the Beav was always getting into trouble with them. He did whatever they told him to do when he should have stood up to them. But then I guess we wouldn't have all the hijinks.

[LucyEth]

Today I saw one of my favorite episodes "The Grass is Always Greener" where Beaver and Wally hang out with the garbage man's kids.  June is so snobby about what Beaver did over their house and how the mom let them do things like jumping on old mattress springs that she did not approve.  It has such a sweet message.  The end is especially good.

June was a bit of a snob with her Aunt Martha and being a Bronson nonsense .  Also her cracks about Larry eating over and Eddie not being good enough for Wally.

[peacheslatour]

Quote

June was a bit of a snob with her Aunt Martha and being a Bronson nonsense .  Also her cracks about Larry eating over and Eddie not being good enough for Wally.

June seems to have had a very sheltered upbringing. She was really naive about a lot of things. It always bugs me how she acts like everything the boys do is completely unheard of. Ward was a lot more down to earth. Also she acted like she;d never read a book, listened to any music or seen a movie. If I were Ward she would have bored me to death. But to be fair,  Eddie wasn't good enough for Wally.

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 5/8/2019 at 4:23 PM, peacheslatour said:

June seems to have had a very sheltered upbringing. She was really naive about a lot of things. ... Also she acted like she;d never read a book, listened to any music or seen a movie.

I was thinking June went to college, so I looked it up and she did.  Here's an interesting article about the character:

https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/defense-june-cleaver

I posted this upthread, concluding that June's still waters ran deep:

And June talking about her days in boarding school, and how she was captain of her class's basketball team, to Wally's utter astonishment.  Or the time she was sitting in the living room listening to a record, and Wally walked in and wanted to know what in the world she was doing, and she mentioned seeing that opera in New York City. 

.

On 5/7/2019 at 7:11 PM, LucyEth said:

June was a bit of a snob with her Aunt Martha and being a Bronson nonsense .

I think she comes by her snobbery honestly, but more important, she has good manners, so the people she might look down on don't know it.  Works for me.

And according to Wikipedia, Ward was a farmer's son and she married him.  So I think she was brought up a certain way and can't shake aspects of it, but seems to do a good job of managing it.

[TheLastKidPicked]

On 5/7/2019 at 6:11 PM, LucyEth said:

June is so snobby about what Beaver did over their house and how the mom let them do things like jumping on old mattress springs that she did not approve.  It has such a sweet message.  The end is especially good.

On 5/8/2019 at 3:23 PM, peacheslatour said:

June seems to have had a very sheltered upbringing. She was really naive about a lot of things

On 5/12/2019 at 10:08 AM, StatisticalOutlier said:

So I think she was brought up a certain way and can't shake aspects of it, but seems to do a good job of managing it.

This is where the show had to walk a fine line.  The producers and writers have stated that their job was to set an example of how to parent children in the newly prosperous 1950's.  I think they did a great job of that.

But they left many people out:

Ward had a good, steady job with solid benefits.  But what about a person who's job went away, through no fault of their own?

June was in good health, and had plenty of time to keep herself looking nice and taking care of the family.  But what about women who have health issues and need extra help?

The boys excelled in school and only needed gentle nudges to complete their homework.  But what about kids with learning disabilities?  

Watching the show, you wouldn't think that people like that existed.

[peacheslatour]

Yeah, the fifties were not that great unless you were white, middle or upper class, Christian heterosexuals.

[peacheslatour]

I was just watching Beaver's Hero. Turns out Ward was a philosophy major. How do you get an engineering degree being a philosophy major?

[Cobb Salad]

He was a dual major?  Or

He has 2 degrees? Or 

The show did not keep track of stuff like this well?

[LucyEth]

There were a lot of episodes where Beaver and a friend or friends decided to to things together and he was the only one who did it and got in trouble or was left looking foolish.  The sweatshirt with the crazy monsters on it, the not wearing a suit and tie to the sports award dinners, today's episode with the polar bear sweater, making the face in the school picture. I am sure there are more, I just can't think of them.   As recurring storyline for sure.  

[LucyEth]

Oh and another recurring storyline.  Beaver and pets.  The monkey, the alligator, the dog, the horse the burro, the rabbit, pigeons.  

[HyeChaps]

Didn’t the boys discover that their mother was in show business when she was young?

[catlover79]

On 10/31/2017 at 1:51 PM, TheLastKidPicked said:

The ironic thing is that the actor who played Gilbert went on to become a serious journalist, who reported for Frontline and other PBS shows and is married to a medical social worker.

Completely opposite of how we would imagine Gilbert would have grown up.

That's right, just as Ken "Eddie Haskell" Osmond became a cop in real life!! I think he had retired from police work by the time the revival series came on in the mid-80s. His two real life sons played Eddie's sons on the show.

[TheLastKidPicked]

On 6/14/2019 at 2:41 AM, catlover79 said:

That's right, just as Ken "Eddie Haskell" Osmond became a cop in real life!! I think he had retired from police work by the time the revival series came on in the mid-80s. His two real life sons played Eddie's sons on the show.

Hugh Beaumont has high achieving kids in real life.  I suspect he was an influence on the kid actors, including Ken Osmond.

[Wavy]

On ‎5‎/‎16‎/‎2019 at 10:49 PM, LucyEth said:

Oh and another recurring storyline.  Beaver and pets.  The monkey, the alligator, the dog, the horse the burro, the rabbit, pigeons.  

Yes, they never had very much luck with pets.  Those are my least favorite episodes.

[peacheslatour]

On 5/16/2019 at 7:49 PM, LucyEth said:

Oh and another recurring storyline.  Beaver and pets.  The monkey, the alligator, the dog, the horse the burro, the rabbit, pigeons.  

Peter Gunn the rat. Beaver had to give him back because Mrs. Rutherford had grown attached to it.

[GrtGzu]

not understanding why June becomes so uppity when she comes back with the Jackie Kennedy hairdo....

seems like her attitude changed and she got awful snooty and insecure when she finds out about the old girlfriends Ward used to have way BEFORE he even met her....(plus I thought they didn't meet each other until they were in COLLEGE anyway)

Wally all of a sudden starts saying stupid things that would've been said when he was much younger, and Beaver says stupid stuff that no 14 yr old would even be thinking about..

these episodes are unwatchable for me, and I can't wait til they get back to the beginning of the series...

[screengem]

Yes, the Beaver and his pets.

Today's episode airing on ME TV  Season 3 Ep 29 about the monkey was unwatchable for me.  Having that poor animal caged in their bedroom was beyond cruel.

I know all of the crazy sitcoms of the era, like the Garry Marshall mid 1971-72 season disaster "Me and the Chimp" with Ted Bessell and Anita Gillette were thought of as funny.  Likewise Ellie May Clampett and her chimp in a dress on The Beverly Hillbillies and other sitcoms were just as silly.

But the absolute worse depiction of monkeys and chimpanzees of all time was a unfunny sitcom called 'The Hathaways" starring Jack Weston and Peggy Cass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hathaways

 

 

But this isn't an excuse.  This whole unfunny theme left me feeling creepy and I switched channels before it was over,

 

 

[Miss Chevious]

Ken Osmond (Eddie Haskell) passed away today. He was 76. RIP, Ken. 

[catlover79]

Thank you, Mr. Osmond - both for entertaining generations through reruns and serving the public as a police officer. God rest you. 🙏❤

 

[catlover79]

I love these promos for NLITB from the mid-1980s, especially Ken and Eric Osmond as Eddie and Freddie Haskell doing that famous laugh!!! 💖

 

[catlover79]

Reunited on Family Feud in 1983 with the casts of other classic shows:

 

[Waterston Fan]

Its funny with Ken Osmand as Eddie Haskell, if you see any memes or pictures of scenes, you just run it in your head and you can  hear him say it cause he would. Sometimes I actually liked him more than Wally and Beaver. 

[peacheslatour]

3 hours ago, Waterston Fan said:

Its funny with Ken Osmand as Eddie Haskell, if you see any memes or pictures of scenes, you just run it in your head and you can  hear him say it cause he would. Sometimes I actually liked him more than Wally and Beaver. 

Sometimes.

[chessiegal]

On 5/6/2020 at 10:07 AM, screengem said:

Yes, the Beaver and his pets.

Today's episode airing on ME TV  Season 3 Ep 29 about the monkey was unwatchable for me.  Having that poor animal caged in their bedroom was beyond cruel.

I know all of the crazy sitcoms of the era, like the Garry Marshall mid 1971-72 season disaster "Me and the Chimp" with Ted Bessell and Anita Gillette were thought of as funny.  Likewise Ellie May Clampett and her chimp in a dress on The Beverly Hillbillies and other sitcoms were just as silly.

But the absolute worse depiction of monkeys and chimpanzees of all time was a unfunny sitcom called 'The Hathaways" starring Jack Weston and Peggy Cass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hathaways

 

 

But this isn't an excuse.  This whole unfunny theme left me feeling creepy and I switched channels before it was over,

 

 

I record Leave It To Beaver. I had a bunch of episodes on the DVR, and my husband happened to be watching when the DVR showed the monkey episode was next. I don't care for it either, and was going to delete it, but my husband wanted to see it. Reason being the town he grew up in had a General Store that had a monkey in a cage. One day when his younger brother was about 12, he came home and told him - someone let the monkey at Grants out of his cage. It's quite a scene. My husband immediately knew who the "someone" was. His brother wondered what would happen if the monkey got out of his cage. It immediately climbed up on high shelves and started throwing everything he found around the store. My husband was kind of disappointed that Beaver's monkey only disrupted June's luncheon.

[Waterston Fan]

I watched Chuckie's new shoes and Beaver and Kenneth. 

I have to admit, I wanted to smack the mom for not taking her own kid to the store after she picked up her husband. 

Kenneths' story almost sounds like Larry's... his dad yells at him, his mom yells at him and then his sister yells at him. Or were they all hitting him? 

EDIT: How does Miss Landers tell Kenneth's father about what he did without making it sound so bad? 

Edited May 21, 2020 by Waterston Fan

[TheLastKidPicked]

On 5/21/2020 at 7:54 AM, Waterston Fan said:

Kenneths' story almost sounds like Larry's... his dad yells at him, his mom yells at him and then his sister yells at him. Or were they all hitting him? 

EDIT: How does Miss Landers tell Kenneth's father about what he did without making it sound so bad? 

That is the only darker side to 1950's tv shows.   If there a hint at a kid or wife who is yelled at or even hit, the shows back then often played it for laughs.

[GreekGeek]

On 5/17/2019 at 12:56 AM, HyeChaps said:

Didn’t the boys discover that their mother was in show business when she was young?

I don’t think so. Beaver had to write a composition for school about his mother’s life before marriage and motherhood, and June’s story was so dull he copied a story an actress told on a talk show. Poor June, having such a boring life even by 1950’s standards. Even old Mrs. Mondello was a dental nurse once!

[VCRTracking]

On 5/22/2020 at 7:58 PM, GreekGeek said:

I don’t think so. Beaver had to write a composition for school about his mother’s life before marriage and motherhood, and June’s story was so dull he copied a story an actress told on a talk show. Poor June, having such a boring life even by 1950’s standards. Even old Mrs. Mondello was a dental nurse once!

There was also the episode Beaver was disappointed Ward was only a surveyor for the "Seabee"(Navy Civil Engineers) during World War 2 and didn't see any action and have cool stories to tell his class. 

Edited May 26, 2020 by VCRTracking

[GreekGeek]

5 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

There was also the episode Beaver was disappointed Ward was only a surveyor for the "Seabee"(Navy Civil Engineers) during World War 2 and didn't see any action and have cool stories to tell his class. 

I thought of that episode also. Beaver got around Ward’s less than adventurous life by focusing on what his dad meant to him rather than what he’d done in the past. It was interesting to see how the show took two very different approaches to the same situation.

[VCRTracking]

2 hours ago, GreekGeek said:

I thought of that episode also. Beaver got around Ward’s less than adventurous life by focusing on what his dad meant to him rather than what he’d done in the past. It was interesting to see how the show took two very different approaches to the same situation.

And Beav didn't know how lucky he was. In real life a lot of kids in the 50s grew up without fathers because they died in the war. The ones who didn't came back with PTSD that they kept to themselves because people didn't talk about that thing in those days and there was no help for them if they did. They either became emotionally distant at best, or violent and turning to drink at worst.

Edited May 26, 2020 by VCRTracking

[chessiegal]

My father fought in combat in WWII. He landed on Omaha Beach D-Day plus 20, so things were fairly secure. He was one of the lucky ones that came home. He was a happy, loving husband and father. He never drank a drop of liquor in his life. My husband's father was the same.

[TheLastKidPicked]

5 hours ago, GreekGeek said:

Beaver got around Ward’s less than adventurous life by focusing on what his dad meant to him rather than what he’d done in the past.

 

3 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

And Beav didn't know how lucky he was. In real life a lot of kids in the 50s grew up without fathers because they died in the war. The ones who didn't came back with PTSD that they kept to themselves because people didn't talk about that thing in those days and there was no help for them if they did.

 

2 hours ago, chessiegal said:

My father fought in combat in WWII. He landed on Omaha Beach D-Day plus 20, so things were fairly secure. He was one of the lucky ones that came home.

These posts remind me of an interview done years ago by the producers of the show.  They had this feeling that they were fortunate to have made it through the depression and made it through the war.  They seemed to feel a responsibility to produce a show that holds up a family that everybody could aspire to be.

 

[VCRTracking]

2 hours ago, chessiegal said:

My father fought in combat in WWII. He landed on Omaha Beach D-Day plus 20, so things were fairly secure. He was one of the lucky ones that came home. He was a happy, loving husband and father. He never drank a drop of liquor in his life. My husband's father was the same.

I shouldn't have generalized and I apologize. There were plenty of veterans who were loving husbands and fathers. I should have said a lot of soldiers could not come back and build a normal life.

20 minutes ago, TheLastKidPicked said:

 

 

These posts remind me of an interview done years ago by the producers of the show.  They had this feeling that they were fortunate to have made it through the depression and made it through the war.  They seemed to feel a responsibility to produce a show that holds up a family that everybody could aspire to be.

 

This great Steve Allen video shows the downside of that. That the idealized world on TV could a give a child unreasonable expectations of real life.

 

 

[TheLastKidPicked]

5 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

This great Steve Allen video shows the downside of that. That the idealized world on TV could a give a child unreasonable expectations of real life.

Thank you for posting that.  And sometimes we have to remember that when we hear people say,  "I wish we could go back to when life was like Leave it to Beaver or The Andy Griffith Show", we have to remember that life was NEVER like that.

Even the produces point that out.  They say that their job was to provide an idealized view of the world.

And I would say they did a nice job of that, which is why we still talk about it all these years later.

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by TheLastKidPicked

[VCRTracking]

 

 

[Waterston Fan]

In the soup episode was on....  Is this episode the reason why we don't see any soups like that afterwards? lol 

So no kid would say, 'I saw it on Leave It To Beaver' and I wanted to try it. 😂

[TheLastKidPicked]

The cast of Leave it to Beaver were on the Matchgame Hollywood squares hour that re-aired this morning.  It is fun to watch them act as themselves instead of their characters.  

Larry Mathers is exactly what you would expect Beaver to be at age 35.  Friendly but kind of shy.  Ken Osmond was nothing like Eddie Haskell as he was gracious, kind and very supportive of the other players.

Frank Bank grew up the way you would hope Lumpy would.  Quiet and confident, and looking nothing like his teenage self.

Richard Deacon made a comment, and I'm not sure if it's a joke or a true story.  He said that Frank's license plate says LUMPY.  It would be a great way to break the ice when meeting new people!

 

 

[Waterston Fan]

Which house did you guys like the most? 

First one or the second one? 

I think I like the second one, just seemed like it had more space and loved Ward's den. 

[chessiegal]

Definitely liked the second one better. I also liked how they made it part of the story line that they moved. The thing about both of them was the boys having an ensuite bathroom. I never knew anyone in that time frame having a bath attached to the kids bedroom. 

[catlover79]

That was the house used in the 1980s revival series. Beaver and his sons lived there with June, while Wally and his family lived in the house next door (211 and 213 Pine Street, respectively).

[catlover79]

On 6/5/2020 at 6:59 PM, TheLastKidPicked said:

Richard Deacon made a comment, and I'm not sure if it's a joke or a true story.  He said that Frank's license plate says LUMPY.  It would be a great way to break the ice when meeting new people!

Considering what Frank named his autobiography, I'd say that's entirely possible!!

 

[TheLastKidPicked]

On 6/6/2020 at 6:33 AM, Waterston Fan said:

Which house did you guys like the most? 

First one or the second one? 

I think I like the second one, just seemed like it had more space and loved Ward's den. 

 

On 6/6/2020 at 6:56 AM, chessiegal said:

Definitely liked the second one better. I also liked how they made it part of the story line that they moved.

 

16 hours ago, catlover79 said:

That was the house used in the 1980s revival series. Beaver and his sons lived there with June, while Wally and his family lived in the house next door (211 and 213 Pine Street, respectively).

I love this picture of the front of the house they built on a soundstage!

[Waterston Fan]

Watching the fifth season of this show, the second episode about having someone stay with Beaver... dang, sometimes June sounds so much like Carol in the early seasons.  Beaver is sometimes oh wait, kinda most of the time like Cindy... has a big mouth. 

EDIT: Beaver is lucky that Richard and Gilbert didn't stick around, if I was Beaver I would make sure they left the house cause I could see those guys pretending to leave... 

Edited June 11, 2020 by Waterston Fan

[chessiegal]

I'm enjoying Season 6, the last season. I was glad to see in the new opening that they had gotten rid of that gawd awful flip hairdo on June. Then in the first few episodes she still has the flip. One episode, the show started with June answering the door with the shorter cut. The next scene she is in the kitchen with the longer flip hairdo. WTF?

[peacheslatour]

22 hours ago, chessiegal said:

I'm enjoying Season 6, the last season. I was glad to see in the new opening that they had gotten rid of that gawd awful flip hairdo on June. Then in the first few episodes she still has the flip. One episode, the show started with June answering the door with the shorter cut. The next scene she is in the kitchen with the longer flip hairdo. WTF?

Filmed out of sequence?