What is it about Leave It To Beaver that keeps us tuning in year after year? I’ve been on a “Beaver” binge for weeks now, beginning with Season 1, Episode 1. I watch when I am bored and as I fall asleep at night. There’s something comforting about listening to Beaver when I am dozing off. It is also comforting to Beave’ binge as I nibble on a slice of pizza as an escape from the troubling news of our times.
I turn the News off and switch The Beaver on.
Those early episodes in 1957 began with a Hugh Beaumont narrative establishing the storyline. It set the stage for what Leave It To Beaver was and would be. These tiresome narratives ended after the first season. The first two seasons were shot on the backlot and in the sound stages of Republic Studios and wound up at Universal for seasons three through five.
I never cared much for the Cleaver house those first two seasons, but there was certainly something familiar about the neighborhood, which had turned up in untold movies and television shows, including My Three Sons.
Leave It to Beaver offered a moral to every story – perhaps as an important message for kids and parents alike. There were times when Ward learned a lesson from his own misunderstanding of a situation with Beaver, much as Sheriff Andy Taylor did with son Opie at times. Each parent misjudged their kid, donning a slice of humble pie when they realized the error of their judgment. I can relate to that one. I cannot count the number of times I’ve blamed our son for things he didn’t do, naturally assuming he’d done it, only to discover I’d done it myself.
Sigh…
Like a lot of us when we were kids, Beaver was always influenced by his closest friends. Troubles began with Larry Mondelo, who always managed to talk The Beave’ into doing what he was instructed never to do. No matter how much the two tried to cover up the misdeed, they always managed to get caught.
Then came Gilbert, Whitey, and Richard, who always managed to lead Beaver down an ill-gotten path. Easily the most memorable moment was the soup bowl billboard where Beaver and Whitey wondered if the bowl was actually filled with soup. With Whitey’s encouragement, Beaver climbed up there and fell in, discovering the bowl was nothing more than a prop with a smoke machine inside. The fire department came and there was no way to hide Beaver’s foolishness. The Zesto Soup billboard episode was the most expensive episode of Beaver ever done at $40,000.
Another moment was Ward’s autographed baseball Larry managed to talk Beaver into having a catch with. Larry aggressively threw the ball, which headed into the street and was run over by a garbage truck.
Leave It To Beaver is a reminder of our own childhoods and the times in which we lived and came of age. We watched Wally and The Beaver grow up on our television screens in an imaginary place called Mayfield. With the sweet combination of writing and direction under the supervision of producers Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher and a great creative team, they managed to make Mayfield a believable place, with realistic storylines and hilarious moments we could all relate to.
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