| Leave It to Beaver | |
|---|---|
 Season one title screen | |
| Genre | |
| Created by | Joe Connelly Bob Mosher |
| Starring | |
| Theme music composer | David Kahn Melvyn Leonard Mort Greene |
| Opening theme | "The Toy Parade" |
| Composers | Pete Rugolo(1957–62) Paul Smith(1962–63) |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 6 |
| No. of episodes | 234(list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Producers | Joe Connelly Bob Mosher |
| Production locations | Republic Studios Universal Studios Los Angeles |
| Camera setup | Single-camera |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production companies | Revue Studios MCA TV Gomalco Productions (1957–1961) (seasons 1–4) Kayro Productions (1961–1963) (seasons 5–6) Universal Television |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBS |
| Release | October 4, 1957 (1957-10-04) – July 16, 1958 (1958-07-16) |
| Network | ABC |
| Release | October 2, 1958 (1958-10-02) – June 20, 1963 (1963-06-20) |
| Related | |
| Still the Beaver The New Leave It to Beaver Leave It to Beaver (1997 film) | |
Leave It to Beaver is an American televisionsitcom that follows the misadventures of a suburban boy, his family and his friends. It starredBarbara Billingsley,Hugh Beaumont,Tony Dow andJerry Mathers.
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 byGomalco Productions from 1957 to 1961, and then by Kayro Productions from 1961 to 1963. It was distributed byRevue Studios.
WhileLeave It to Beaver never broke into theNielsen Ratings top 30 in its six-season run, it proved to be much more popular inreruns. It also led to an unsuccessful 1997film of the same name.
The show is built around youngTheodore "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) andJune 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" inWorld War II; from that came the family's name, "Cleaver."[2]
Beaver's friends include the perpetually apple-munchingLarry Mondello (Rusty Stevens) in the early seasons, and, later,Gilbert Bates (Stephen Talbot), as well as the old firefighter, Gus (Burt Mustin). His sweet-natured-but-no-nonsense elementary school teachers areMiss Canfield (to whom Beaver declares his love in the episode entitled "Beaver's Crush") (Diane Brewster),Miss Landers (Sue Randall) andMrs. Rayburn (Doris Packer), the school's principal. In the early seasons, Beaver's nemesis in class isJudy Hensler (Jeri Weil).
In its first season, 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. Heletters in three sports. He has little difficulty attracting girlfriends, among themMary Ellen Rogers (Pamela Baird) and Julie Foster (Cheryl Holdridge). His pals include the awkwardClarence "Lumpy" Rutherford (Frank Bank) and smart aleckEddie Haskell (Ken Osmond), thearchetype of the two-faced wise guy, a braggart among his peers and an obsequiousyes man to the adults he mocks behind their backs. Eddie often picks on the Beaver.
The family lives in the town of Mayfield, Ohio.[citation needed] In the episode "The Grass is Always Greener" (Season 2, Episode 15) a major clue[weasel words] is seen on the side of a "Henry's Refuse" garbage truck, where the address "8102 Euclid" is seen. Euclid Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the Cleveland, Ohio area and Mayfield is a Cleveland suburb.[original research?] Beaver attends Grant Ave. Grammar School and Wally attends Mayfield High School (after graduating from Grant Ave. in season one).
| Season | Episodes | Originally released | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First released | Last released | |||
| Pilot | April 23, 1957 | |||
| 1 | 39 | October 4, 1957 | July 16, 1958 | |
| 2 | 39 | October 2, 1958 | June 25, 1959 | |
| 3 | 39 | October 3, 1959 | June 25, 1960 | |
| 4 | 39 | October 1, 1960 | June 24, 1961 | |
| 5 | 39 | September 30, 1961 | June 30, 1962 | |
| 6 | 39 | September 27, 1962 | June 20, 1963 | |
Thepilot, titled "It's a Small World", aired on April 23, 1957.[4][5] It featuredMax 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-hourmarathon to commemorate the show's 50th anniversary.[6] It is also available as a bonus episode on the season-one DVD; 234 episodes followed.
The second episode, "Captain Jack", was intended to be the pilot, but as Jerry Mathers toldFox News in 2014, the episode had to show a toilet, which censors would not allow at the time. Wally and Beaver put their pet alligator in the toilet tank, since it needed to be in water. The episode was finally allowed to air with just the toilet tank showing. Mathers said the show "actually set some precedent for the television industry."[7]
Avoice-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 onMeTV.
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 thestoop. 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.
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/arrangerPete Rugolo.
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,MeTV in May 2013,Antenna TV in May 2015 andFETV in August 2021. MeTV currently airs it weekdays at 8am & 8:30am ET and Sundays at 1pm & 1:30pm ET,[8] while FETV airs it weekdays at 10:30am & 11:05am ET, every night at 2am & 2:35am ET and Sundays at 6:30am & 7:05am ET.[9] Today,NBCUniversal Television owns the syndication rights and all properties related to the series.
A made-for-television reunion movie,Still the Beaver, appeared in1983. 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 byRichard 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 starredChristopher McDonald as Ward,Janine Turner as June,Erik von Detten as Wally, andCameron Finley as Beaver. It was panned by many critics, except forRoger Ebert, who gave it a three-star rating. It performed poorly at the box office, earning only$10,925,060 against a budget of $15 million.[10] Barbara Billingsley, Ken Osmond and Frank Bank madecameo appearances in the film.
Beverly Cleary wrote three novels based on the show:[11]
Juvenile books
There was also a novelization of the 1997 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 atUniversal Studios, though the original façade was replaced in 1988 for the following year'sThe 'Burbs and sits in storage elsewhere on the Universal lot. The façade was replaced again for the 1997Leave It to Beaver movie.
Universal Studios released the first two seasons ofLeave It to Beaver onDVD inRegion 1 in 2005/2006.
On January 26, 2010, it was announced thatShout! 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.[18]
On January 31, 2012, Shout! Factory released a 20-episode best-of set titledLeave It to Beaver: 20 Timeless Episodes.[19]
Universal Pictures Home Entertainment announced a release of the complete series onBlu-ray that was released on November 14, 2023.[20]
| DVD name | Ep # | Release date | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Complete First Season | 39 | November 22, 2005 | [21] |
| The Complete Second Season | 39 | May 2, 2006 | [22] |
| Season Three | 39 | June 15, 2010 | [23] |
| Season Four | 39 | September 14, 2010 | [24] |
| Season Five | 39 | December 14, 2010 | [25] |
| Season Six | 39 | March 1, 2011 | [26] |
| The Complete Series | 234 | June 29, 2010 | [27] |
In the mid-1970s, Mathers appeared onThe Tomorrow Show hosted byTom 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 "inthe 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, and news wire services erroneously reported this was the Beaver. ActressShelley Winters allegedly announced it onThe Tonight Show, bringing the rumor to a wider audience. Mathers said later the rumor was so widespread that his close friend and former costar 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.[28]
Another urban legend was that actor Ken Osmond (Eddie Haskell) became porn starJohn 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,[29] 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.[30]
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