![]() ![]() Waldron quotes Dick Van Dyke Show creator Carl Reiner, who expresses an unreserved admiration for the series, and who talks about how it influenced his own famous sitcom, a series now regarded as one of the three or four best television comedies of all-time. But then something in Vince Waldron's excellent The Dick Van Dyke Show Book got me thinking about the series in a new way. Like most audiences, until recently I took Leave It to Beaver for granted. As writer-producer Brian Levant remarks in one of the featurettes, Leave It to Beaver was almost unique among American sitcoms - it was wise. No, Leave It to Beaver is remembered because was an extremely well-made, memorable show. But the shared affection toward Leave It to Beaver differs from other familiar, forever-syndicated programs like The Brady Bunch, a series remembered more because it was drummed into the collective consciousnesses of the '70s generation through endless UHF repeats rather than because it was any good. Beaver somehow never lost its audience and it remained popular. It became emblematic of '50s blandness and conservative family values, and accused of unrealistically presenting an idealized nuclear family, one whose matriarchal figure, for instance, did the vacuuming wearing a pearl necklace and high heels.Īnd yet as criticized as it was, it's always somewhere on the airwaves, even after television stations stopped showing old black & white TV shows and movies to make way for all those mind-numbing infomercials. For the past 50 years, it's been regarded with a strange, simultaneous mixture of fondness and derision. However, over the course of it’s 6 season run it dealt with alcohol abuse, male and female relations, divorce, growing pains and many other things that are a common part of the modern American Family experience.Though perennially popular, Leave It to Beaver is one of television's most misunderstood, most under-appreciated comedies. If you really watch it you will see that it’s dealing with personal/social issues that had to be handled with “kid gloves” due to the nature of TV at that time. To some, they will never see this show as anything other than something that was on TV before the shows got “good.” Personally, I see this show as being a good representation of our country. To my recollection they resided in 2 homes in the city of Mayfield. Or, I look forward to using the DVDs to examine the different homes that the Cleaver’s moved into over the course of the show. ![]() I look forward to getting the other 5 seasons when they come out, so I can find out how Beaver’s bestpal went from being Larry to Gilbert. All the shows played just as easily as when I watch them everyday on TV Land. I consider myself an aficionado of this show, but I had no idea how many of these early episodes I had already seen. How many times as a young child were you misunderstood? How many times were we given responsibilities and things just went wrong that were totally out of our control? We have all been “The Beaver” at one point or another. This show is packed with relatable life lessons for everyone. We have Ward (Hugh Beaumont), the firm father, June (Barbara Billingsley), the mother who runs the house, Wally (Tony Dow), the mean and nice big brother and of course Jerry Mathers as The Beaver. Essentially, we are getting a modern American family in the Cleavers. People who only watch things to stand off to the side and laugh at them don’t hang around for 6 years. Also, this show ran for 6 years so this tells me that there was an audience that related to it beyond the show just being a mere novelty. They call it “plastic” or “not real.” Now, I am not saying that this show is what life was like for everyone growing up, but as far as I am concerned, there are many things touched upon in this show that relate very heavily to my life. I know that a lot of people slag this show. So imagine my sheer elation when I was flipping through the pages of Home Media Retailing some months back and discovered that this great show was finally going to be coming out on DVD. In fact, my top 4 favorite TV shows of all time are (in no particular order) Leave It To Beaver, The Brady Bunch, All In The Family and The Andy Griffith Show. ![]() Leave It To Beaver - The Complete First Season is one of my favorite shows of all time. ![]() I wish there had been some featurettes, commentary tracks and other bonus materials on this 3 disk DVD set. ![]()
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