The Beaver

On this day, exactly one half century ago, Leave It To Beaver premiered on network television.



Now, I don't know what anybody else has ever been told, but the bird's eye lowdown that I heard over the years was that the writers had the time of their lives doing this show.

The apex of this double-entendre-fest, which lasted for six years without network censors ever suspecting a thing, apparently, was the day that June Cleaver asked her husband, "Weren't you a little hard on the Beaver last night?"

This was on a par with Groucho Marx who remarked (in response to the guest who said he had 14 children), "Well... I like my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth every once in a while..."

I mean, even the kid's name was a double entendre! Beaver Cleaver... how could a TV show's main character on 1950's network television have possibly run with a handle like that?

It doesn't get any better than this! And it was a family show! It really did happen!

June, Ward, Wally, and "the Beaver"...

On the face of this show, it was pure sap, and as thoroughly TV America as a jpeg compressed picture of an apple pie. But those unscrupulous writers were probably the most celebrated behind the scenes fellows for a very long time.

Meanwhile, in the midst of all this fluff, and aside from the double-entendres in the dialogue, ...there was Eddie Haskell.

There was an Eddie Haskell in every neighborhood of every town in America. The personna was truly archetypal. Back then, we laughed over how Eddie would be so purely amoral in his self-serving quests, opinions, and actions.

And, no matter how outrageous the situation Eddie ever created, no matter how amoral, unethical, or even illegal, anything promulgated by him was ultimately set straight within the half hour slot for the show.

Eddie was the ultimate "moral of the story" in 1950's TV-land...

Eddie Haskell was probably the most poignant character ever invented on American television in those days. He was the one foil playing against the rest of the cast that made this show forever an iconic treasure of late 1950's television.

Of course, now that all the Eddie Haskells in all the neighborhoods of America have grown up and gotten into politics... well, I guess that's all the explanation any of us will ever need.