Leave It To Beaver Arrives

Leave It To Beaver was a little different than the average family sitcom. Many of them seemed to be centred on a father in various degrees of befuddlement. But over at the Cleaver household, dad was not a boob; with his calm demeanour and sweater, he had more in common with Perry Como (sans singing) than Chester Riley. And the plots didn’t revolve around him.

The show debuted Oct. 4, 1957, lasted six seasons, then instantly moved into afternoon reruns in syndication. At the outset, it got mostly favourable reviews.

The Hearst paper’s TV columnist gave his verdict the day of the premiere.

‘Leave It To Beaver’ Endearing, Cute
By JACK O’BRIAN
NEW YORK, Oct. 4 (INS) — The new CBS-TV situation series Leave It to Beaver is an endearing little slice of cuteness, sometimes too blamed cute for words, obviously created and composed by writers of considerable perception into what makes junior run.
Probably it's because the writers, Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, have eight children between them. If they've made any mistake, it's on the side of affection, as might any parents who expand and sweeten every tale involving their youngsters. Occasionally Leave It to Beaver got so precious you almost went glug, but generally it had a slick, impish niceness, not unlike Ozzie & Harriet or rather, Ricky and David Nelson, set back to their younger childhood.
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Beaver is the nickname of the second-grade pupil who is starred, a darling lad played by Jerry Mathes [sic], known to his family and even his teacher as Beaver Cleaver. The Beaver is a very good little performer, and if some of the too-cuteness stuffed into his role cloys somewhat, he can't be blamed; blame it on Connelly and Mosher who must see their own octet as the cutest things since Teddy bears.
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George Gobel owns Leave It to Beaver, by the way, another layer of good green in his wallet.

John Crosby of the Herald Tribune syndicate approved of the show. His column of Oct. 18, 1957:

'Leave It to Beaver' Is Refreshing Show
By JOHN CROSBY
NEW YORK—Childhood has been touched on and walked over and toyed with on a dozen different family series on television but a new show "Leave It to Beaver," goes into it a great deal more extensively and, for a chance, from the delicately muddled viewpoint of the child.
"My name's Beaver," the title role, age eight, explains to his teacher on the opening day of school.
"Is that your given name?" asks the teacher.
"Yes, my brother give it to me," says Beaver.
The brother, who give it to him, is Wally, age 12. Wally is teetering precariously on the edge of adolescence but the Beaver keeps yanking him back into the trusting innocence of childhood. In other words there is the adult world of the parents and two quite not-quite separate levels of childhood, which is a rather more complex exploration of the child world than has ever been attempted on TV before.
Wonderful Candor
The plots of the Beaver show are the sort of thing that anyone's kids might get into and the dialogue has that wonderful candor and directness with which children disconcert and enchant you. The first one, for instance, concerned Beaver's getting a note to take to his mother from his teacher. The other kids tell him this sounds like he's done something awful and he hides the note and somehow gets the idea he's been expelled. "You'll be the first person thrown out of second grade in the history of the school," observes one youngster thoughtfully.
Anyway, after a bit more plot, the Beaver runs away from home—as didn't we all—and the family—mother, father and older brother go looking for him. "What's he look like?" asks a gas station attendant. "He looks like a kid," says his brother. They find him high in a tree.
"What are you doing?" inquires his father.
"Sitting in a tree, Daddy," says Beaver. "I'm going to stay here till I die."
How's That Again?
There was another exchange in this episode that I'm fond of.
Kid: He tells jokes in class.
Father: Who?
Kid: Mr. Wilks.
Father: Funny jokes?
Kid: No.
In another episode the kids buy a baby alligator from a mail order house and raise it to imposing proportions in strict secrecy from their parents on a diet of stolen eggs and brandy. This, naturally, leads to a good deal of confusion in the household, especially when the alligator gets to be about five feet long.
The cast—Jerry Mathers as the eight-year-old Beaver, Tony Dow as the 12-year-old Wally, Barbara Billingsley as the mother and Hugh Beaumont as the father—all underplay and understate their positions with great charm and discretion. This throws the emphasis where it belongs—on the fact that even with the greatest good will in the world there are great gaps in understanding between different age levels. And not just between childhood and adulthood. Frequently, Wally is as baffled by the little boy world of his younger brother as his parents.
Charming, Sincere
"Leave It to Beaver" is not great art but it is charming and sincere. I imagine the adults in your family will like it as much as the children. It's really aimed at both age groups.
Of course, we've had kids on these situation comedy series before—by the dozens, as matter of fact. But, always they were contemplated from the top, from the viewpoint of the parent downward. But in this one the two kids are the focal point and the gaze is upwards.

Connelly and Mosher were used to different kinds of comedy. For one thing, they had spent ten years on radio and TV writing Amos 'n' Andy. And Jerry Mathers was already a show biz veteran, starting at age 2 1/2 and then getting a break thanks to Alfred Hitchcock, who cast him in The Trouble With Harry starring Shirley MacLaine.

When the show wound down in 1963, the finale being a retrospect with clips from 11 episodes, Mathers admitted to North America Newspaper Alliance columnist Harold Heffernan his mother had turned down three series for him, but approved Beaver simply because it was a pilot and would be a one-shot. “Those things don’t sell,” his father said.

Not only did it sell, the series has fans almost 70 years later.