Perhaps the archetypal “feel-good” family situational comedy, the television show Leave it to Beaver first aired on April 23, 1957 and provided viewers with a peek into the inner melodramatic turmoil of the Cleaver family at 485 Grant Avenue in Mayfield. Few at the time knew that “beaver cleaver” was a euphemism for a penis but the show’s writers didn’t stop there. (An early episode found June asking Eddie Haskell about his rubbers.) The most famous double entendre from the show dialogue surely must have been a concerned June Cleaver scolding “Ward, weren’t you a little hard on the Beaver last night?” Although in the late 1950s the media was strictly censored, this type of innocent raunch still flew stealthily right over home plate. The very few who did scratch their head or bat an eyelash or crack a smile at the realization that all the talk about Beaver wasn’t perhaps so innocent didn’t quite mind enough to report their suspicions to the censors, so the cast enjoyed a healthy run of six seasons. By the last season Theodore Cleaver’s day-to-day melodramas finally started to seem canned.
When the last episode aired on June 20, 1963 the nation had no idea that a president’s assassination was to be waiting on its doorstep just a few months later and that a war in Vietnam would soon be broadcast daily on every television screen, which had once been merely the source of idyllic scenes from other family-oriented sitcoms and variety shows.
Nearly every episode of Leave it to Beaver culminated in an absurdist epiphany from the “little goof.” Beaver’s illuminations offered proof that the outside world made absolutely no sense until his judgment of it was offered, and during the delivery of each epiphany, time nearly stopped until all those within earshot of the proffered wisdom had duly noted its relevance. Beaver’s mini-sermons-on-the-mount were always ludicrous yet often they were also right on the money. In the Cleaver household, where all except Wally had already resigned themselves to absolute entropy, Beaver’s asides resembled aphorisms, maxims, and even an absurdist version of Hindu darshana. According to Wikipedia “In many cultures, including Samuel Johnson’s England, many East and Southeast Asian societies, and throughout the world, the ability to spontaneously produce aphoristic sayings at exactly the right moment is a key determinant of social status. Many societies have traditional sages or culture heroes to whom aphorisms are commonly attributed, such as the Seven Sages of Greece, Confucius or King Solomon.” A maxim, uttered to advise, is succinct and offers little wiggle room for the listener. From the Latin maxima propositio, or “greatest premise” the most effective maxims seem like completely closed systems. Theodore Cleaver, however, in the delivery of his random epiphanies always gave the impression to viewers that he would be perfectly fine completely contradicting himself the following day—or even in the next five minutes. This utter adaptability made Beaver seem more advanced than the other members of the cast. Like a true Postmodern, Beaver would pick and choose knowledge at random and use only what worked.
from The Lost Episode Guide
Oh that Eddie Haskell’s parents stop by to tell Ward and June about their son’s latest atrocity but the Beave gosh overhears and mistakenly thinks they’re talking about him. He packs his bag and decides to hitchhike to Alaska where a kid can live without parents and stuff. Ward intervenes when Larry Mondello pays a visit to the Cleaver home carrying a suitcase full of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.
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Beaver and Whitey want to help their country after watching a filmstrip in school about oh boy Communism. Beaver decides the best way to help is to just stay in his room with the door locked for a few hours. Ward arrives home and convinces the Beaver that the best way to fight Communism is to come out and help mother with dinner by setting the table.
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Beaver gosh feels the soft pangs of love and gets Wally to help him pen a love letter to the object of his affections only to discover that the letter fell into the hands of their substitute teacher. The little goof has some explaining to do when she mistakenly surmises the letter is from oh boy Mr. Cleaver.
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Oh that Beaver wakes up late for school (again) after a tumultuous dream that convinces him that he is destined to travel in space as an astronaut. With Whitey’s help, the Beaver constructs a space ship in the backyard that Eddie Haskell and Wally gleefully destroy. Wally is so guilt-ridden the next day he gives the Beave a shiny new nickel!
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Ward really blows his stack with the Beaver when he discovers that he and Whitey have been wearing his cardigan sweater and sticking his pipe in their mouths as they have a laugh pretending to be hard-working dads. Ward decides to show ‘em the ropes by telling the Beave that due to unforeseen circumstances the Beave will have to get a job at the salt mines to support gosh the whole family.
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Geez, Eddie Haskell talks Wally into cheating by passing him answers during an important test in school. Wally gulp has to retake a much harder test as punishment the following day and he counts on Beave to help him get out of the jam by standing at the classroom window with Wally’s textbook in hand. The plan is foiled at the last minute as the Beaver remembers that he can’t read big words and stuff.
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Beaver gets hit in the darnit head with a pop-fly baseball after school and is now convinced he has psychic abilities. With Larry Mondello’s help, the Beave sets up a fortune-telling sidewalk stand. Together the boys have it made in the shade until Lumpy shows up and wants to know if he made the baseball team. The next day in school a furious Lumpy shows the boys that gee Dad honesty is the best policy.
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Beaver golly expands like a balloon and explodes after eating all the ice-cream in the fridge, which Wally has to aw shucks clean up when Beave gets sick. The Beave then tells Wally “brothers are better than ice-cream” while in the tub with his boats taking his you rascal cleanup bath.
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Tooey decides he would be much healthier and happier if he gave his lunch money to Lumpy on a daily basis. Wally and the gang decide to rattle Lumpy’s cage by threatening to reveal Lumpy’s dark summer camp secret—that he knitted, gee whiz, a girl sweater.
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Wally flips for the new girl at school only to find out she thinks he’s from Nowheresville. Wally gets Chester to help him get with it by fixing up a used motor scooter so the object of his affections will think he’s cool. When the boys discover that the scooter is a heap, Wally parks the scooter at the top of a big hill. As Wally coasts past the new girl and the Beave on his way to a big crash, Beave, the little goof, ruins Wally’s chances by mentioning Wally’s real good at hula hoop, too.
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Beaver works hard at odd jobs after school so he can afford a genuine coonskin cap. When he finally saves enough and buys it, June (just wait till I tell your father about this) mistakes it for a wild animal on the kitchen table and the Beaver watches all that hard work pass right before his eyes as mom stuffs it down the crummy garbage disposal.
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Beaver’s failing science class and Eddie Haskell explains to the little goof that growing mold is the quickest way to impress a science teacher. The (you’re grounded) Beaver puts some soggy two-week old bread in with a brand new loaf and finds out that dad ate the moldy bread for lunch, thinking that June had bought some new kind of bread at the health food store. The Beaver has to study for his science test owie standing up.
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Beaver, Larry, and Whitey decide to trap squirrels in the backyard. They get more than they bargain for however, when Eddie Haskell (the rat) and Wally decide to play a prank. They use a bottle of ketchup and a wig to convince the boys that their trap is a little too deadly. When Larry starts crying, Eddie reveals the secret and they all have a laugh—until golly the police show up.
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Miss Landers tells the class to write about what they did on their summer vacations. Beaver decides that his summer was too boring so he tells a whopping lie that backfires when Miss Landers invites all the parents in to hear their little darlings present their papers aloud. Ward and June discover how much fun the family had on their recent trip to Paris.
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Beaver decides that his same old magic trick is not getting the reaction he wants so he decides to improvise and accidentally sets fire to the backyard. Whitey and the Beave spend the rest of the afternoon painting the ground with green paint not knowing that gee Mom, you saw the whole thing?
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A new neighbor moves in next door and Beaver thinks she’s the cat’s meow. Eddie Haskell gives Beave the business by telling him that she’s a genuine movie star incognito. Beaver thinks he can be a movie star too until Wally tells the little goof he’s been walking around the neighborhood wearing, golly, women’s sunglasses.
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Beave sees Wally standing after school with some boys smoking, so he thinks Wally is smoking too. He starts preparing for Wally’s funeral by crying in his room because he knows that Dad will flip if he finds out. When Ward finds out what’s going on he gets the boys together to jog a few laps around the neighborhood to see if Wally’s really a smoker. That’s when the Beaver discovers his Saturday mornings are a lot more fun when he just minds his own business and stuff.
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Oh that Beaver and Larry Mondello pretend to be private eyes and spend the afternoon spying on Wally and Mary Ellen Rogers as they sit together on the front porch swing. Wally gives Beave the business when he discovers he’s listening by mentioning to Mary Ellen that the Beaver is really just an adopted gypsy. The little goof shows up at school the next day wearing Mom’s flowery new shower curtain to show off his gypsy ancestry.
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Wally helps Lumpy after school with Lumpy’s homework, a diorama about pioneer life. Beaver golly wants to help, too, so when the boys leave the room he places one of his army men in the pioneer scene. The next day Lumpy suddenly has to explain to the whole class how the pioneers occasionally used hand grenades to protect the wagon train.
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Larry Sawyer curates the Myopic Books Poetry Reading Series in Chicago. Recent readers at Myopic Books include Jerome Rothenberg, Eileen Myles, and Cole Swensen. He is also co-director of The Chicago School of Poetics (www.chicagoschoolofpoetics.com).
In what Leave it to Beaver episode did Eddie Haskell tell Wally and Beaver the correct way to hang horseshoes so that the luck would not run out of them
Posted by: Bill Selvo | March 22, 2021 at 11:45 AM