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
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]
In its first season, Beaver's brother Wally was in eighth grade and 12 years old, while Beaver was 7 and in second grade—a five-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).
Cast
The Cleaver family
Main characters
Barbara Billingsley as June Cleaver: Billingsley has said that June Cleaver's wardrobe was more than a fashion statement.[citation needed] The pearl necklace hid a hollow (caused by a surgical scar) in her neck which would have caused shadows[3] and high-heeled shoes were employed to offset the boys' growing height.
Hugh Beaumont as Ward Cleaver: Before he made Ward Cleaver his acting trademark, Beaumont sometimes played villains in film and television. He directed a number of Leave It to Beaver episodes in the last two seasons, including the final one, the retrospective "Family Scrapbook".
Jerry Mathers as Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver: The casting directors noticed that Mathers was uneasy at the auditions and asked him where he would rather be. Mathers replied that he would rather be at his Cub Scout den meeting, where he was going after the audition. That boyish innocence got Mathers the part of Beaver.[2]
Karl Swenson in two 1958 episodes, "Train Trip" and "Voodoo Magic"
Anne Barton in two 1963 episodes, "Summer in Alaska" and "The Credit Card"
George O. Petrie in two 1963 episodes, "Summer in Alaska" and "The Credit Card"
Diane Brewster as Miss Canfield (October 4, 1957–March 21, 1958 air dates), Beaver's first teacher at Grant Ave. Grammar School. Brewster also played Miss Simms in the pilot episode.
Sue Randall as Miss Alice Landers (October 16, 1958–June 20, 1963), Beaver's teacher, replacing Miss Canfield
Stephen Talbot as Gilbert Bates (March 19, 1959–June 6, 1963): Appears first as an insecure braggart, becomes a character who constantly gets Beaver in trouble, and ends up as Beaver's best friend.
The pilot, titled "It's a Small World", aired on April 23, 1957.[4][5] It featured Max Showalter (credited as Casey Adams) as Ward Cleaver, and Paul Sullivan as Wally Cleaver. TBS re-aired the pilot on October 4, 1987, to commemorate the show's 30th anniversary. TV Land re-aired it on October 6, 2007, as part of their twenty-four-hour marathon to commemorate the show's 50th anniversary.[6] It is also available as a bonus episode on the season-one DVD; 234 episodes followed.
A voice-over by Hugh Beaumont precedes each episode in the first season, providing a background to that episode's theme. These are omitted in airings on TV Land, but included in airings on MeTV.
Opening titles
Season one: The characters are not shown. A drawing of a street, viewed from above, displays the credits in wet concrete.
Season two: Ward and June, standing at the bottom of the stairs, see the boys off to school as they come down the stairs and exit the front door.
Season three: Ward and June enter the boys' bedroom to wake them.
Season four: Ward and June open the front door and stand on the stoop. As Wally, followed by Beaver, leave for school, June hands them their lunches; Ward gives them their jackets.
Season five: June takes refreshments to the men in the front yard.
Season six: June, carrying a picnic basket, walks from the front door towards the car. Ward, carrying a thermos jug for the picnic, is next, followed in quick succession by Wally. Beaver, lagging behind, runs out, slamming the door behind him. Ward, with June in the passenger seat and the boys in back, then reverses toward the camera.
Musical theme
The show's playfully-bouncy theme tune, which became as much of a show trademark as Beaver's baseball cap or Eddie Haskell's false obsequiousness, was "The Toy Parade," composed by David Kahn, Melvyn Leonard, and Mort Greene. For the final season, however, the song was given a jazz-like arrangement by veteran composer/arranger Pete Rugolo.
Syndication
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.
Spinoffs
A made-for-television reunion movie, Still the Beaver, appeared in 1983. The main original cast appeared, except for Beaumont, who had died the previous year. Ward Cleaver was still a presence, however: the film's story used numerous flashbacks to the original show, as it followed young-adult Beaver's struggle to reconcile divorce and newly minted single fatherhood, straining to cope with what his father might or might not have done, as he faces the possibility of his widowed mother selling their childhood home. June Cleaver is later elected to the Mayfield City Council.
Its reception led to a new first-run, made-for-cable series, The New Leave It to Beaver (1984–1989), with Beaver and Lumpy Rutherford running Ward's old firm (where Lumpy's pompous, demanding father — played by Richard Deacon in the original series — had been the senior partner), Wally as a practicing attorney and expectant father, June having sold the old house to Beaver himself but living with him as a doting grandmother to Beaver's two young sons. Eddie Haskell runs his own contracting business and has a son, Freddie, who is every inch his father's son — right down to the dual-personality.
1997's movie adaptation of the series starred Christopher McDonald as Ward, Janine Turner as June, Erik von Detten as Wally, and Cameron Finley as Beaver. It was panned by many critics, except for Roger Ebert, who gave it a three-star rating. It performed poorly at the box office, earning only $10,925,060 against a budget of $15million.[7] Barbara Billingsley, Ken Osmond and Frank Bank made cameo appearances in the film.
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.
On January 26, 2010, it was announced that Shout! Factory had acquired the rights to the series (under license from Universal). They subsequently released the remaining seasons on DVD as well as a complete series box set.[15]
On January 31, 2012, Shout! Factory released a 20 episode best-of set titled Leave It to Beaver: 20 Timeless Episodes.[16]
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]
↑ "Osmond v. EWAP, Inc". Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 3, California. March 28, 1984.
General
Applebaum, Irwyn, The World According to Beaver, TV Books, 1984, 1998. ISBN1575000520.
Bank, Frank, Call Me Lumpy: My Leave It to Beaver Days and Other Wild Hollywood Life, Addax, 2002. ISBN978-1886110298.
Colella, Jennifer, The Leave It to Beaver Guide to Life: Wholesome Wisdom from the Cleavers! Running Press, 2006. ISBN9780762427734.
Ehrlich, John, and Richard A., 75 Aromatic Years of Leavitt & Pierce in Recollection of 31 Harvard Men, 1883–1958. Cambridge: Leavitt and Pierce Tobacconists, 1958.
June Evelyn Bronson Cleaver is a principal character in the American television sitcom Leave It to Beaver. June and her husband, Ward, are often invoked as the archetypal suburban parents of the 1950s. The couple are the parents of two sons, Wally and "Beaver". Wally is twelve years old and in the seventh grade when the series opens; Beaver is seven years old and in the second grade. Episodes followed the escapades of Wally and Beaver and usually ended with a moral lesson delivered to the boys, but also often included reminders of childhood and minor lessons for the parents through the adventures of their boys. She was included in Yahoo!'s Top 10 TV Moms from Six Decades of Television for the time period 1957–1963.
Gerald Patrick Mathers is a former American actor best known for his role in the television sitcom Leave It to Beaver, originally broadcast from 1957 to 1963. He played the protagonist Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver, the younger son of the suburban couple June and Ward Cleaver and the younger brother of Wally Cleaver.
Barbara Billingsley was an American actress. She began her career with uncredited roles in Three Guys Named Mike (1951), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), and Invaders from Mars (1953), and was featured in the 1957 film The Careless Years opposite Natalie Trundy. She then appeared in recurring TV roles, such as The Brothers.
Ward Cleaver Jr. is a fictional character in the American television sitcom Leave It to Beaver. Ward and his wife, June, are often invoked as archetypal suburban parents of the 1950s baby boomers. At the start of the show, the couple are the parents of Wally, a 13-year-old in the seventh grade, and seven-year-old second-grader Theodore, nicknamed "The Beaver". A typical episode from Leave It to Beaver follows a misadventure committed by one or both of the boys, and ends with the culprits receiving a moral lecture from their father and a hot meal from their mother.
Edward Clark Haskell is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Leave It to Beaver, which ran on CBS from October 4, 1957, to 1958 and on ABC from 1958 to 1963. He was played by Ken Osmond. The character was also featured in the later series Still the Beaver, and in the 1997 film remake of the original series.
Kenneth Charles Osmond was an American actor and police officer. Beginning a career as a child actor at the age of four, Osmond played the role of Eddie Haskell on the late 1950s to early 1960s television situation comedy Leave It to Beaver and reprised it on the 1980s revival series The New Leave It to Beaver. Typecast by the role, he found it hard to get other acting work and became a Los Angeles police officer. After retiring from police work, he resumed his acting career.
Wallace "Wally" Cleaver is a fictional character in the iconic American television sitcom Leave It to Beaver. Wally is the thirteen-year-old son of archetypal 1950s suburban parents, Ward and June Cleaver and the older brother of the seven-year-old title character, Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver. The characters grew older along with the actors.
The New Leave It to Beaver is an American sitcom sequel to the original 1957–1963 sitcom Leave It to Beaver. The series began with the 1983 reunion television movie Still the Beaver that aired on CBS in March 1983. The success of the television movie prompted the creation of a revival series, also titled Still the Beaver, that aired on The Disney Channel from 1984 to 1985. In 1986, the series was picked up by TBS, where it aired until June 1989.
Leave It to Beaver is a 1997 American comedy film directed by Andy Cadiff, based on the 1957–1963 television series of the same name. Many in-jokes and sub-plots relating to the series are adapted for the film. It features many of the original regular characters, most played by new actors, with some cameos by the original TV cast. The film was released by Universal Pictures on August 22, 1997.
Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver is the fictional title character in the American television series Leave It to Beaver. Originally played by Jerry Mathers, Beaver is the son of June and Ward Cleaver and the brother of Wally Cleaver.
Clarence "Lumpy" Rutherford is a fictional character in the television sitcom Leave It to Beaver. The show aired from October 4, 1957 to June 20, 1963. Lumpy is a bit of a bully and, with Eddie Haskell, is one of Wally Cleaver's friends.
Frederick "Fred" Rutherford is a fictional character in the television sitcom Leave It to Beaver. The show aired October 4, 1957 to June 20, 1963. Fred is portrayed by Richard Deacon. Alan Rachins played the character in the 1997 film adaptation of the series, Leave It to Beaver.
Larry Mondello is a fictional character from the iconic American television series Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963). He is portrayed by child actor Robert "Rusty" Stevens. Larry Mondello appears in 68 of the show's 234 episodes over the first few seasons. Although Larry is mentioned in the premiere episode, "Beaver Gets 'Spelled", it is not until the eighth episode, "Beaver's Crush", that he actually makes an appearance.
"Family Scrapbook" is the series finale of the American television series Leave It to Beaver. It is the 39th episode of the sixth season, and the 234th episode overall. Written by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher and directed by series star Hugh Beaumont, the episode originally aired on ABC on June 20, 1963.
"Beaver Gets 'Spelled" is the series premiere of the American television series Leave It to Beaver. The episode is the first episode of the first season of the show. It was written by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, and directed by Norman Tokar. The episode originally aired on CBS on October 4, 1957. It is also available on DVD.
"It's a Small World" is the pilot episode from the American television series Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963). The pilot was first televised April 23, 1957, on the syndicated anthology series, Studio 57, without a laugh track nor the series' well known theme song, "The Toy Parade". It never aired as an episode within the series. Following its April 1957 telecast, the episode was subsequently misplaced and was feared lost until a copy was found in a film vault in Illinois. After rediscovery, it was aired as the third-season premiere for the 1980s TBS revival series The New Leave It to Beaver on October 4, 1987, exactly 30 years after the original series officially premiered on CBS. It was televised again in October 2007 as part of TV Land's 50th anniversary celebration of Leave It to Beaver. It was released to DVD in 2005. The series made its CBS debut several months later on October 4, 1957, with the episode, "Beaver Gets 'Spelled".
Judy Hensler is a fictional character in the American television sitcom Leave It to Beaver. The show aired from October 4, 1957 to June 20, 1963. Judy is a recurring character portrayed by Jeri Weil. She appeared in 31 of the show's 234 episodes, between October 1957 and October 1960.
Martha Bronson is a fictional recurring character in the American television sitcom Leave It to Beaver. "Aunt Martha," as she is known in the series, appears in five of the show's 234 episodes and is mentioned occasionally but not seen. The character is portrayed by Madge Kennedy.
The sixth and final season of the television series Leave It to Beaver aired from September 27, 1962, to June 20, 1963, on ABC. It consisted of 39 black-and-white episodes, each running approximately 25 minutes.
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