Leave It to Beaver
Leave It to Beaver is an American television sitcom that follows the misadventures of a suburban boy, his family and his friends. It stars Barbara Billingsley, Hugh Beaumont, Tony Dow and Jerry Mathers ("as The Beaver", as the opening credits put it).
For other uses, see Leave It to Beaver (disambiguation).Leave It to Beaver
Sitcom, children's television series
David Kahn
Melvyn Leonard
Mort Greene
"The Toy Parade"
Pete Rugolo (1957–62)
Paul Smith (1962–63)
United States
English
6
234 (list of episodes)
Joe Connelly
Bob Mosher
Republic Studios
Universal Studios
Los Angeles
30 minutes
Revue Studios
MCA TV
Gomalco Productions
(1957–1961)
(seasons 1–4)
Kayro Productions
(1961–1963)
(seasons 5–6)
October 4, 1957 –
July 16, 1958
October 2, 1958 –
June 20, 1963
CBS first broadcast the show on October 4, 1957, but dropped it after one season. ABC picked it up and aired it for another five years, from October 2, 1958, to June 20, 1963. It proved to be a scheduling challenge for both networks, moving through four time slots (Wednesday through Saturday evenings) over the course of its run.[1] The series was produced by Gomalco Productions from 1957 to 1961, and then by Kayro Productions from 1961 to 1963. It was distributed by Revue Studios.
Leave It to Beaver never broke into the Nielsen Ratings top 30 in its six-season run. However, it proved to be much more popular in reruns. It also led to an unsuccessful 1997 film of the same name.
Premise[edit]
The show is built around young Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver (Jerry Mathers) and the trouble he gets himself into while navigating an often-incomprehensible, sometimes illogical world. Supposedly, when he was a baby, his older brother Wallace "Wally" (Tony Dow) mispronounced "Theodore" as "Tweedor". Their firm-but-loving parents, Ward (Hugh Beaumont) and June Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley), felt "Beaver" sounded better. Conversely, Mathers has said that the real reason for the name "Beaver" is that one of the show's writers, Joe Connelly, had a shipmate named "The Beaver" in World War II; from that came the family's name, "Cleaver."[2]
Beaver's friends include the perpetually apple-munching Larry Mondello (Rusty Stevens) in the early seasons, and, later, Gilbert Bates (Stephen Talbot), as well as the old fireman, Gus (Burt Mustin). His sweet-natured-but-no-nonsense elementary school teachers are Miss Canfield (to whom Beaver declares his love in the episode entitled "Beaver's Crush") (Diane Brewster), Miss Landers (Sue Randall) and Mrs. Rayburn (Doris Packer), the school's principal. In the early seasons, Beaver's nemesis in class is Judy Hensler (Jeri Weil).
In its first season, Beaver's brother Wally was in eighth grade and 13 years old, while Beaver was 7 and in second grade—a six-year age difference; in real life, the two actors were only three years apart. By the series' end, the boys were inexplicably only four years apart, with Wally graduating from high school and Beaver graduating from grammar school. Wally is popular with both peers and adults, getting into trouble much less frequently than some of the other characters. He letters in three sports. He has little difficulty attracting girlfriends, among them Mary Ellen Rogers (Pamela Baird) and Julie Foster (Cheryl Holdridge). His pals include the awkward Clarence "Lumpy" Rutherford (Frank Bank) and smart aleck Eddie Haskell (Ken Osmond), the archetype of the two-faced wise guy, a braggart among his peers and an obsequious yes man to the adults he mocks behind their backs. Eddie often picks on the Beaver.
The family lives in the fictional town of Mayfield. Beaver attends Grant Ave. Grammar School, and Wally, Mayfield High School (after graduating from Grant Ave. in season one).
Syndication[edit]
Reruns of the show became part of CBS affiliates' lineups in the mornings for several years. TBS aired the show for many years in the late 1980s. TV Land began airing it in July 1998, and MeTV in May 2013. Today, NBC Universal Television owns the syndication rights and all properties related to the series.
Other media[edit]
Books[edit]
Beverly Cleary wrote three novels based on the show:[8]
Juvenile books
There was also a novelization of the 1997 film:
House[edit]
The Cleavers moved from 485 Mapleton Drive to 211 Pine Street, both in Mayfield, for the start of season three. In 1969, the house was reused for another Universal-produced television hit, Marcus Welby, M.D. This house can still be seen at Universal Studios, though the original façade was replaced in 1988 for the following year's The 'Burbs and sits in storage elsewhere on the Universal lot. The façade was replaced again for the 1997 Leave It to Beaver movie.
Urban legends[edit]
In the mid-1970s, Mathers appeared on The Tomorrow Show hosted by Tom Snyder. Snyder pointed out that Mathers had not worked for a long time and that there was rumor going around that he had been killed "in the war in Southeast Asia". Mathers replied that he heard that rumor and he had no idea how it started. The rumor began when a Sgt. Steven Mathers was killed in Vietnam in 1968. News wire services erroneously reported this was the Beaver. Actress Shelly Winters announced it on The Tonight Show. Jerry Mathers said later the rumor was so widespread that his close friend Tony Dow sent bereavement flowers to his parents. In actuality, Jerry Mathers never set foot in Vietnam, though he did serve in the Air National Guard.[25]
Another urban legend was that actor Ken Osmond (Eddie Haskell) became porn star John Holmes. Holmes took 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 eleven years," says Osmond,[26] who brought a $25 million defamation suit against porn houses, producers and distributors. The suit went all the way to the California Supreme Court. The court ruled for Holmes, saying the name was protected as a satire. This case set a precedent in the matter, and is still referred to in other cases in California today.[27]