Leave It to Beaver DVD 1997 SKU: 4780233. Rating: User rating, 4 out of 5 stars with 3 reviews. (3) Price Match Guarantee. Apr 10, 2018 After leaving Leave it to Beaver in 1960, Tiger stopped acting professionally. He returned to acting in 1983 when he reprised his role as Tooey Brown in the TV reunion film Still the Beaver. He also portrayed Tooey in the follow-up sitcom The New Leave it to Beaver, which aired from 1983 to 1987. Leave It To Beaver S03E20 Beaver And Andy. I Dream Of Jeannie. Leave It To Beaver S05E27 Beaver The Babysitter. I Dream Of Jeannie. Leave It To Beaver S01E37 Beaver Runs Away.

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One of the first sitcoms to air on American TV, Leave It To Beaver, was such a compelling and universal show, that including reruns, it hasn’t gone off the air since it first debuted in 1957. Viewers were introduced to Theodore ‘Beaver’ Cleaver and his family, which included older brother Wally, as well as model parents, June and Ward Cleaver. From the very first episode, audiences could relate to the silly predicaments the boys got themselves into, seeing either themselves or their children in the characters. In spite of its legacy, there is probably a lot you didn’t know about what went on behind the scenes of Leave It To Beaver. Now, the remaining cast members are telling it all.

When the war broke out in Vietnam, Jerry Mathers, who played Beaver, wanted to enlist in the Marines. Fearing bad publicity should a well-loved child star be killed in action, he was told he wouldn’t be deployed. Instead, Mathers decided to join the United Air Force Reserve.

Even though Mathers wasn’t quite doing what he wanted, he still felt good that he was contributing to the war effort in some form or another. He even got to wear his own uniform!

Unlike most TV shows today, the pilot that was shot for Leave It To Beaver featured several different actors than the ones who would later become famous for the show. Ward was originally portrayed by Max Showalter in the pilot episode, while Wally was played by Paul Sullivan.

Unfortunately for Paul, he grew too much in the six-month break before the show went to series. The producers wanted someone who would look younger, so they cast Tony Dow as Wally instead.

There was a very specific reason producers found the young Jerry Mathers endearing when he showed up to audition for Beaver. Mathers was dressed in his cub scout uniform, however, it wasn’t just a costume choice.

Mathers genuinely had a cub scout meeting to go to after his audition, which he was anxious to get too. He was so worried about being late for the meeting, he informed the casting team that he had somewhere to be, which they absolutely loved.

On the show, Wally was often portrayed as the successful older brother, who not only was smooth with the ladies, but was admired for his athletic prowess.

Some of that stems from the fact that Tony Dow himself was an accomplished athlete, even before he made it onto the show. He had been a Junior Olympian swimmer before he began acting. Even before Dow was cast, the producers were looking for someone athletic to fill the role, so Dow was a perfect fit.

Hugh Beaumont turned to acting for very different reasons that most performers. While many people seek side jobs in order to support their acting dreams, Beaumont got into acting for the paycheck.

He was otherwise an ordained minister with a degree in theology from University of Southern California. The ministry to which he was assigned happened to be extremely poor, so he needed to find another source of income. It just so happened that playing Ward Cleaver was the best way to do so.

The series premiered on a notable day in history, though it had nothing to do with the show that would become an icon in its own right later on.

The day the series began running was October 4, 1957, which was the same day that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the very first satellite into space. Beaver may not have been reliant on pop culture for its storylines, but it certainly made mention of the Sputnik launch during several episodes.

During an interview for the show’s 60th anniversary, Tony Dow told Today that the show’s writers didn’t want Leave It To Beaver to be filled with jokes that had audiences rolling on the floor in laughter.

Dow explained, “[I]f any line got too much of a laugh, they’d take it out. They didn’t want a big laugh; they wanted chuckles.” You may have wondered why the humor of the show was styled as such, so it’s nice that Dow provided the answer.

One of the most noticeable goofs on the show was the changing age gap between Wally and Beaver. When the show first began, Beaver was only in second grade, making him around 7 years old.

Wally, on the other hand was in 8th grade, meaning there was a six year gap between the boys. By the end of the show, however, Beaver was set to begin high school, while Wally was graduating, meaning the gap had reduced to only a four year difference.

Though show may have been more internally consistent than most TV programs in history, but the fictional Mayfield’s general location seemed to be in flux. Some consider Mayfield to be in Wisconsin, because the town of Madison, as well as the Green Bay Packers, were mentioned.

In another episode, however, Beaver mentions being only 30 miles from the beach. Yet another episode made it seem like Mayfield was in Ohio, because Wally supposedly went to a school near Shaker Heights.

One would have imagined that booking such a popular show like Leave It To Beaver would have been an exciting event, however, for Hugh Beaumont, it led to tragedy. After he was cast as Ward Cleaver, he had to get himself to California pronto, which meant flying.

His usual routine was to drive with his wife, son, and mother-in-law from Minnesota, but didn’t have the time. Instead, his son drove the family, but ended up in an accident on the way, which Hugh’s mother-in-law didn’t survive.

When Leave It To Beaver first debuted on CBS, strict censorship laws governed what could and couldn’t be shown on TV. Beaver became the first program to show a toilet on screen, but were only allowed to show the tank and handle.

Leave It To Beaver Trains

It took producers a significant amount of negotiation in order to show even that much, but eventually, the executives on the Production Code Association, who were responsible for policing film and television decided to relent, so long as the scene wasn’t too crude.

At 69, Jerry Mathers hasn’t been acting much lately, but he did surprisingly end up the focus of a tragic rumor during his mid-life years.

Somehow, a myth was begun and perpetuated that Mathers had in fact been killed in Vietnam, which is ironic because the military wouldn’t let him serve for that reason. Despite the rumors, Mathers became the star of Beaver spin off movies and TV shows in the 1980s, which was originally titled, Still The Beaver.

When asked about any on set mishaps in his Fox News interview, Mathers had one very particular story that wasn’t well known otherwise. In a play taken straight from Beaver’s life, Mathers was shooting an episode where Beaver cares for a neighbor’s cat.

When the purebred show cat was put in the tree for the scene, however, it was spooked by its surroundings and ran away. Mathers recalled that it took nearly 5 days to find the frightened kitty.

In celebration of the TV show’s 60th anniversary, many of the cast members began doing interviews on many TV networks in order to discuss their time on the show.

During one 2014 interview, Mathers appeared on Fox News to discuss his favorite recollections from the show. For his appearance, he pulled out the old interview uniform, explaining that during the show’s run, he and Tony Dow would wear a Mayfield High School letterman sweater for their press appearances.

There’s more to the tale of the toilet on Leave It To Beaver than simply being censored for wanting to show a toilet. At the time, no show had ever shown a bathroom, and the censorship authorities wanted to do more than just remove the scene from the show.

The first episode of the main series revolved around Wally and Beaver buying an alligator, which they needed to put in water. Because of that scene, the show was almost banned from the airwaves entirely.

Leave It To Beaver had a curious effect on fashion trends of the era. Many associate June Cleaver’s classic pearls as the quintessential look for a 1950s housewife, but the truth is, that wasn’t necessarily every mother’s uniform.

Barbara Billingsley chose pearls as part of her regular costume because she had a small scar on her neck that she deemed unsightly for the cameras. The pearls would hide the scar from viewers, which made Billingsley more confident about her appearance.

After the show, Ken Osmond left the acting business in order to become a police officer for the Los Angeles Police Department. In the 1980s, Osmond was shot three times while he was on duty during a chase with a criminal.

Luckily for Osmond, he was wearing a bullet-proof vest, which ultimately saved his life. Eddie might have been quite the rascal on the set of Leave It To Beaver, but Osmond’s future profession showed just how different he was from his character.

Hugh Beaumont wasn’t content to simply act on the show. It’s clear from his profession as a minister, as well as the fact that he had gotten a Master’s degree, he was interested in more serious pursuits.

To that end, Beaumont was able to play a part in writing for several episodes of Leave It To Beaver, as well as to also direct some of the episodes. This just proves that Beaumont was a man of many talents.

Many audience members reminisce about how June Cleaver was always pristine, even while engaging in all sorts of housework. Both her pearls and her heels are one of the most cited examples of what it meant to be a housewife in the 1950s.

However, Barbara Billingsley didn’t wear heels at the start of the show. She only began wearing heels as the two boys began growing, so she could better appear to tower over them, especially when dealing with their many misdeeds.

Tony Dow almost didn’t make it into the acting business, but rather decided to tag along with a friend of his who was a lifeguard at one of the pools he swam in.

On a whim, Tony decided to audition alongside his friend, and they filmed a pilot together, which never got off the ground. It was Tony’s luck, however, that when Leave It To Beaver realized they needed to recast Wally, they remembered him and gave him a call.

The Cleaver house that was shown on screen for most of the series is still standing in the Universal backlot. The house was constructed when the show moved its filming operations over to Universal, and the studio decided not to knock it down.

Instead, it became the house that was used for a number of other shows as well. If you were to go on a tour of the Universal lot, there’s still a chance you too could visit the Cleaver house.

When the show first debuted in 1957, its ratings were only so so, which caused executives at CBS to rethink their commitment to the program. The network cancelled the show, but Beaver’s cancellation was short lived, as it was quickly picked up again by ABC.

Production was shifted to a different backlot, and other than their air time changing, the show otherwise remained the same. It would go on to enjoy a total of six seasons before it wrapped.

Many of the scenarios that Beaver and Wally found themselves in throughout the show often seemed to hit very close to the concerns of other children and teenagers their age. There was good reason the boys’ lives were so relatable to viewers.

One of the show’s writers, Joe Connelly, based Wally and Beaver off of his own children, whose antics he would scribble down in a notebook on the regular. He also included their friends in the friends of both Beaver and Wally.

When considering the most iconic 1950s cool guy, most people think of Fonzy from Happy Days before remembering Leave It To Beaver. Unlike Beaver, Happy Days was filmed during the 1970s, even though it took place in the 1950s.

That means that Eddie Haskell was the original cool kid. He often showed off his personal flare by coming up with constant nicknames for the other characters, most of which were improvised by Ken Osmondon the spot.

Wally and Beaver may have been the center of the show, but the story certainly wouldn’t have been the same without having Eddie Haskell in the mix.

Eddie was played by the actor Ken Osmond, but due to a little mix up in an interview, many viewers believed Eddie Haskell grew up to become Alice Cooper, the rock musician. What Cooper had meant was that he behaved a lot like the character of Haskell as a child, not that he portrayed him.

It wasn’t uncommon for stars of the 1950s to cross over into other artistic genres, not unlike many stars today. To that end, executives attempted to make a pop star out of Jerry Mathers in addition to being a TV star.

Under their guidance, Jerry recorded two singles, “Don’tcha Cry” and “Wind Up Top”. Neither song got very much air time, which was fortunate, because they weren’t considered to be that good. Mathers didn’t end up pursuing a music career in the end.

In the 1980s, Wally and Beaver were brought back to screens in a TV movie that featured them as parents, with June around as a loving grandma to their kids. The movie was developed into a new series titled The New Leave It To Beaver.

Surprisingly, the show ran for a total of four seasons, and included many of the original cast members’ real children as actors on the show. The only actor who didn’t return was Hugh Beaumont, who had died several years prior.

One of the most curious things about the final seasons of the show is that the Cleavers’ car very distinctly had no back windshield.

This wasn’t because cars lacked the technology for them, but rather because the glass of the windshield created a glare when filmed by the cameras. In order to be able to see the boys sitting in the back seat of the car, the glass was therefore removed, which solved the problem of glare.

Despite the fact that Beaver’s friend Lumpy was seen as the ultimate nerd throughout the show, when the actor, Frank Bank wrote his autobiography as a result, he claimed that he was rather gifted when it came to his romantic relationships.

Given the character he portrayed, it’s hard to image Lumpy as anything akin to suave. In his later years, he became a stockbroker, after finding it hard to break allusions that he really was Lumpy. He ended up managing several cast members’ investments.

By 1963, no TV show had ever had a proper series finale, but Beaver found itself in a bit of a pickle. Jerry Mathers wanted to take a break from acting in order to focus on going to high school.

The producers weren’t able to figure out a way for the show to go on without him, so they decided it would be best for Leave It To Beaver to go off the air. It was the first series to have a true finale.

One of the first sitcoms to air on American TV, Leave It To Beaver, was such a compelling and universal show, that including reruns, it hasn’t gone off the air since it first debuted in 1957. Viewers were introduced to Theodore ‘Beaver’ Cleaver and his family, which included older brother Wally, as well as model parents, June and Ward Cleaver. From the very first episode, audiences could relate to the silly predicaments the boys got themselves into, seeing either themselves or their children in the characters. In spite of its legacy, there is probably a lot you didn’t know about what went on behind the scenes of Leave It To Beaver. Now, the remaining cast members are telling it all.

When the war broke out in Vietnam, Jerry Mathers, who played Beaver, wanted to enlist in the Marines. Fearing bad publicity should a well-loved child star be killed in action, he was told he wouldn’t be deployed. Instead, Mathers decided to join the United Air Force Reserve.

Even though Mathers wasn’t quite doing what he wanted, he still felt good that he was contributing to the war effort in some form or another. He even got to wear his own uniform!

Unlike most TV shows today, the pilot that was shot for Leave It To Beaver featured several different actors than the ones who would later become famous for the show. Ward was originally portrayed by Max Showalter in the pilot episode, while Wally was played by Paul Sullivan.

Unfortunately for Paul, he grew too much in the six-month break before the show went to series. The producers wanted someone who would look younger, so they cast Tony Dow as Wally instead.

There was a very specific reason producers found the young Jerry Mathers endearing when he showed up to audition for Beaver. Mathers was dressed in his cub scout uniform, however, it wasn’t just a costume choice.

Mathers genuinely had a cub scout meeting to go to after his audition, which he was anxious to get too. He was so worried about being late for the meeting, he informed the casting team that he had somewhere to be, which they absolutely loved.

On the show, Wally was often portrayed as the successful older brother, who not only was smooth with the ladies, but was admired for his athletic prowess.

Some of that stems from the fact that Tony Dow himself was an accomplished athlete, even before he made it onto the show. He had been a Junior Olympian swimmer before he began acting. Even before Dow was cast, the producers were looking for someone athletic to fill the role, so Dow was a perfect fit.

Hugh Beaumont turned to acting for very different reasons that most performers. While many people seek side jobs in order to support their acting dreams, Beaumont got into acting for the paycheck.

He was otherwise an ordained minister with a degree in theology from University of Southern California. The ministry to which he was assigned happened to be extremely poor, so he needed to find another source of income. It just so happened that playing Ward Cleaver was the best way to do so.

The series premiered on a notable day in history, though it had nothing to do with the show that would become an icon in its own right later on.

The day the series began running was October 4, 1957, which was the same day that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the very first satellite into space. Beaver may not have been reliant on pop culture for its storylines, but it certainly made mention of the Sputnik launch during several episodes.

During an interview for the show’s 60th anniversary, Tony Dow told Today that the show’s writers didn’t want Leave It To Beaver to be filled with jokes that had audiences rolling on the floor in laughter.

Dow explained, “[I]f any line got too much of a laugh, they’d take it out. They didn’t want a big laugh; they wanted chuckles.” You may have wondered why the humor of the show was styled as such, so it’s nice that Dow provided the answer.

One of the most noticeable goofs on the show was the changing age gap between Wally and Beaver. When the show first began, Beaver was only in second grade, making him around 7 years old.

Wally, on the other hand was in 8th grade, meaning there was a six year gap between the boys. By the end of the show, however, Beaver was set to begin high school, while Wally was graduating, meaning the gap had reduced to only a four year difference.

Though show may have been more internally consistent than most TV programs in history, but the fictional Mayfield’s general location seemed to be in flux. Some consider Mayfield to be in Wisconsin, because the town of Madison, as well as the Green Bay Packers, were mentioned.

In another episode, however, Beaver mentions being only 30 miles from the beach. Yet another episode made it seem like Mayfield was in Ohio, because Wally supposedly went to a school near Shaker Heights.

One would have imagined that booking such a popular show like Leave It To Beaver would have been an exciting event, however, for Hugh Beaumont, it led to tragedy. After he was cast as Ward Cleaver, he had to get himself to California pronto, which meant flying.

His usual routine was to drive with his wife, son, and mother-in-law from Minnesota, but didn’t have the time. Instead, his son drove the family, but ended up in an accident on the way, which Hugh’s mother-in-law didn’t survive.

When Leave It To Beaver first debuted on CBS, strict censorship laws governed what could and couldn’t be shown on TV. Beaver became the first program to show a toilet on screen, but were only allowed to show the tank and handle.

It took producers a significant amount of negotiation in order to show even that much, but eventually, the executives on the Production Code Association, who were responsible for policing film and television decided to relent, so long as the scene wasn’t too crude.

At 69, Jerry Mathers hasn’t been acting much lately, but he did surprisingly end up the focus of a tragic rumor during his mid-life years.

Somehow, a myth was begun and perpetuated that Mathers had in fact been killed in Vietnam, which is ironic because the military wouldn’t let him serve for that reason. Despite the rumors, Mathers became the star of Beaver spin off movies and TV shows in the 1980s, which was originally titled, Still The Beaver.

When asked about any on set mishaps in his Fox News interview, Mathers had one very particular story that wasn’t well known otherwise. In a play taken straight from Beaver’s life, Mathers was shooting an episode where Beaver cares for a neighbor’s cat.

When the purebred show cat was put in the tree for the scene, however, it was spooked by its surroundings and ran away. Mathers recalled that it took nearly 5 days to find the frightened kitty.

In celebration of the TV show’s 60th anniversary, many of the cast members began doing interviews on many TV networks in order to discuss their time on the show.

During one 2014 interview, Mathers appeared on Fox News to discuss his favorite recollections from the show. For his appearance, he pulled out the old interview uniform, explaining that during the show’s run, he and Tony Dow would wear a Mayfield High School letterman sweater for their press appearances.

There’s more to the tale of the toilet on Leave It To Beaver than simply being censored for wanting to show a toilet. At the time, no show had ever shown a bathroom, and the censorship authorities wanted to do more than just remove the scene from the show.

The first episode of the main series revolved around Wally and Beaver buying an alligator, which they needed to put in water. Because of that scene, the show was almost banned from the airwaves entirely.

Leave It To Beaver had a curious effect on fashion trends of the era. Many associate June Cleaver’s classic pearls as the quintessential look for a 1950s housewife, but the truth is, that wasn’t necessarily every mother’s uniform.

Barbara Billingsley chose pearls as part of her regular costume because she had a small scar on her neck that she deemed unsightly for the cameras. The pearls would hide the scar from viewers, which made Billingsley more confident about her appearance.

After the show, Ken Osmond left the acting business in order to become a police officer for the Los Angeles Police Department. In the 1980s, Osmond was shot three times while he was on duty during a chase with a criminal.

Luckily for Osmond, he was wearing a bullet-proof vest, which ultimately saved his life. Eddie might have been quite the rascal on the set of Leave It To Beaver, but Osmond’s future profession showed just how different he was from his character.

Hugh Beaumont wasn’t content to simply act on the show. It’s clear from his profession as a minister, as well as the fact that he had gotten a Master’s degree, he was interested in more serious pursuits.

To that end, Beaumont was able to play a part in writing for several episodes of Leave It To Beaver, as well as to also direct some of the episodes. This just proves that Beaumont was a man of many talents.

Many audience members reminisce about how June Cleaver was always pristine, even while engaging in all sorts of housework. Both her pearls and her heels are one of the most cited examples of what it meant to be a housewife in the 1950s.

However, Barbara Billingsley didn’t wear heels at the start of the show. She only began wearing heels as the two boys began growing, so she could better appear to tower over them, especially when dealing with their many misdeeds.

Tony Dow almost didn’t make it into the acting business, but rather decided to tag along with a friend of his who was a lifeguard at one of the pools he swam in.

On a whim, Tony decided to audition alongside his friend, and they filmed a pilot together, which never got off the ground. It was Tony’s luck, however, that when Leave It To Beaver realized they needed to recast Wally, they remembered him and gave him a call.

The Cleaver house that was shown on screen for most of the series is still standing in the Universal backlot. The house was constructed when the show moved its filming operations over to Universal, and the studio decided not to knock it down.

Instead, it became the house that was used for a number of other shows as well. If you were to go on a tour of the Universal lot, there’s still a chance you too could visit the Cleaver house.

When the show first debuted in 1957, its ratings were only so so, which caused executives at CBS to rethink their commitment to the program. The network cancelled the show, but Beaver’s cancellation was short lived, as it was quickly picked up again by ABC.

Production was shifted to a different backlot, and other than their air time changing, the show otherwise remained the same. It would go on to enjoy a total of six seasons before it wrapped.

Many of the scenarios that Beaver and Wally found themselves in throughout the show often seemed to hit very close to the concerns of other children and teenagers their age. There was good reason the boys’ lives were so relatable to viewers.

One of the show’s writers, Joe Connelly, based Wally and Beaver off of his own children, whose antics he would scribble down in a notebook on the regular. He also included their friends in the friends of both Beaver and Wally.

When considering the most iconic 1950s cool guy, most people think of Fonzy from Happy Days before remembering Leave It To Beaver. Unlike Beaver, Happy Days was filmed during the 1970s, even though it took place in the 1950s.

That means that Eddie Haskell was the original cool kid. He often showed off his personal flare by coming up with constant nicknames for the other characters, most of which were improvised by Ken Osmondon the spot.

Wally and Beaver may have been the center of the show, but the story certainly wouldn’t have been the same without having Eddie Haskell in the mix.

Eddie was played by the actor Ken Osmond, but due to a little mix up in an interview, many viewers believed Eddie Haskell grew up to become Alice Cooper, the rock musician. What Cooper had meant was that he behaved a lot like the character of Haskell as a child, not that he portrayed him.

It wasn’t uncommon for stars of the 1950s to cross over into other artistic genres, not unlike many stars today. To that end, executives attempted to make a pop star out of Jerry Mathers in addition to being a TV star.

Leave It To Beaver Cd

Under their guidance, Jerry recorded two singles, “Don’tcha Cry” and “Wind Up Top”. Neither song got very much air time, which was fortunate, because they weren’t considered to be that good. Mathers didn’t end up pursuing a music career in the end.

Leave It To Beaver Characters

In the 1980s, Wally and Beaver were brought back to screens in a TV movie that featured them as parents, with June around as a loving grandma to their kids. The movie was developed into a new series titled The New Leave It To Beaver.

Surprisingly, the show ran for a total of four seasons, and included many of the original cast members’ real children as actors on the show. The only actor who didn’t return was Hugh Beaumont, who had died several years prior.

One of the most curious things about the final seasons of the show is that the Cleavers’ car very distinctly had no back windshield.

Leave It To Beaver Episodes

This wasn’t because cars lacked the technology for them, but rather because the glass of the windshield created a glare when filmed by the cameras. In order to be able to see the boys sitting in the back seat of the car, the glass was therefore removed, which solved the problem of glare.

Despite the fact that Beaver’s friend Lumpy was seen as the ultimate nerd throughout the show, when the actor, Frank Bank wrote his autobiography as a result, he claimed that he was rather gifted when it came to his romantic relationships.

Given the character he portrayed, it’s hard to image Lumpy as anything akin to suave. In his later years, he became a stockbroker, after finding it hard to break allusions that he really was Lumpy. He ended up managing several cast members’ investments.

By 1963, no TV show had ever had a proper series finale, but Beaver found itself in a bit of a pickle. Jerry Mathers wanted to take a break from acting in order to focus on going to high school.

The producers weren’t able to figure out a way for the show to go on without him, so they decided it would be best for Leave It To Beaver to go off the air. It was the first series to have a true finale.