Halloween TV Countdown #6: "Leave it to Beaver"

We love Leave it to Beaver around here. It's one of the handful of babyboomer-beloved sitcoms that is truly a classic, an artistic classic. Beaver is incredibly clever, still hilarious, humane and still relevant as it finds its humor in everyday life and human interaction. Nothing flashy or over-the-top about this one, nor anything sanctimonious or preachy. Leave is to Beaver is pure gold.

Our Halloween choice here wasn't even a Halloween episode, but it fits the holiday perfectly. It's from LitB's 1958 - 1959 season, the show's second, and it's called "The Haunted House". Beaver (Jerry Mathers) is scared of an old house in the neighborhood, a decrepit abode where the kids think a witch lives. The woman isn't a witch at all, but just a older lady with a cute dog, but Beaver doesn't find that out until he's scared himself silly.

The dialogue is funny, with Ward (Hugh Beaumont) and June (Barbara Beaumont) making up excuses why Beaver thinks Mrs. Cooper is a witch, and Wally (Tony Dow) offering up some practical advice. One of my favorite lines is when Wally explains to Beaver that she's not a witch, because if she was, she'd "probably just cook up a monster to walk her dog." Leave it to Beaver frequently exhibits a tremendous sense of the absurd and it's a breezy delight to hear one of these great silly lines come out. Always a treat!

Of additional interest is veteran actress Lillian Bronson who plays Mrs. Cooper. Longtime Los Angeles residents and commuters would remember her beautiful haunting visage overlooking the Hollywood Freeway for many years in artist Kent Twitchell's giant "Freeway Lady" mural. (You can read more about Twitchell, Bronson and the mural here.) Lillian Bronson also played Fonzie's grandmother in a 1975 episode of Happy Days, and died at the age of 92 in 1995.

Leave it to Beaver "The Haunted House" is available on YouTube in three parts, starting here, so definitely take a look. You'll enjoy it!

Boo! And Bow Wow!

Losing Barbara Billingsley

For many of us boomer-era kids, Leave it to Beaver has been with us as long as we can remember. We might have watched it in childhood, though it's anything but a kid show. More likely we caught up with it in syndication, in reruns that were the staple of independent stations and later cable nets ever since the show ended its first run status in 1963. We might have started watching the Cleaver family because of some identification with Wally (Tony Dow) and the Beaver of Jerry Mathers, but if you're any connoisseur of TV comedy it was the clever interplay and sly performances of Hugh Beaumont as father Ward and Barbara Billingsley as mother June that really made the show.

Now we hear that Barbara Billingsley died yesterday at the age of 94, and we, who only knew her from her television and movie work, share the loss of this talented actress as much as if we knew her personally. That's the power of television at work, but another wonderful power TV has is to confer immortality on beloved personalities. Barbara Billingsley easily falls into that group, her role as June -- without question the iconic Television Mom for all times -- ensuring her always a place in pop culture and more importantly a spot in the American zeitgeist as the idealized mid-20th Century mother. Even the staunchest feminist could not have denied the positive vibe coming from Barbara as June; a good mom is good for everybody.



Pre-Beaver, Barbara was a hard-working actress toiling in relative obscurity but racking up credits in movies and TV. Post-Beaver she in many ways never did shake off June Cleaver's lasting influence -- how could she? -- but claimed a huge comic win as the jive talking older woman in the original Airplane! movie from 1980. (It kind of was her "Betty White" moment).



She revisited the Leave it to Beaver world in guest appearances and series sequels, and was always enthusiastic about the show and its important place in TV comedy history. (She did a wonderful multi-part interview which you can watch at the Archive of American Television.)

My favorite LitB episode, actually especially for one line from Ward but also for an especially graceful performance by Barbara Billingsley, is the third season's "June's Birthday" when Beaver buys June a gaudy blouse for her birthday. It's charming, absurdist, and utterly lovable, and available on Netflix instant view if you're a subscriber, or also in a version on TVLand's website -- can't recommend that one, way too many commercials!) -- but it's better than nothing. Though LitB lost a little of its crazy perfection as the kids aged, it never lost its smart writing or the winsome relationship between Ward and June. Camp? Hardly. Humane, respectful and hilarious? Certainly.


This weekend we all lost a mother, didn't we?

Classic TV Fathers We (Still) Love

As we approach Father's Day, we've been thinking about television fatherhood. Though a while back we declared Charles Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie and Andy Taylor from The Andy Griffith Show our favorite television dads, we've always had a soft spot for some of the other father characters from the 1950s and 1960s. We grew up watching these, if not in primetime, then certainly in afternoon reruns on our local independent stations. Frequently funny, sometimes even a little crazy, these dads had some super qualifications and appeal. We knew it was all make-believe, but that didn't stop these guys from getting to us! In no particular order, but with much affection...

Ozzie Nelson as himself from The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Cool, slyly hilarious, so completely relaxed, the original "no visible means of support" father (bandleader? office guy? who knew?), Ozzie Nelson was extremely personable and seemed like a lot of fun, in a Perry Como-kind of lazy, let-me-take-a-nap kind of way. Much funnier than he is generally given credit for, and that's unfortunate. Up with Ozzie! Frank Faylen as Herbert Gillis in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Like so many TV fathers, Herbert was frequently exasperated by his dreamy son Dobie's girl troubles and Dobie's beatnik buddy Maynard, but he was also inspired, hep, nutty, hard-working, and realistically cynical. No sugar coating here! Credit creator and writer Max Schulman for making Herbert Gillis so unique in the annals of bland male father characters! Robert Young as Jim Anderson in Father Knows Best. This was one of those sitcoms which wasn't particularly funny and in fact was often fraught with domestic issues. Jim Anderson was the serious kind of father, definitely employed, pretty square, but thoughtful and understanding. Good thing, because his family, consisting of smart and ambitious older daughter Betty, rambunctious teenage boy Bud, and sensitive youngest girl Kathy, seemed to have identity crises, school issues and performance anxiety incidents occuring on a regular basis. Much suburban angst was in evidence in the Anderson household, but Jim made it all better by the end of the half-hour, thank goodness! William Bendix as Chester Riley on The Life of Riley. Closer to Herbert Gillis than Jim Anderson, Riley was a harried, blue-collar aircraft plant worker, and often perplexed by his family obligations in the form of a son and a daughter. He was a nice guy, definitely a comedy father, making The Life of Riley one of the genuinely funniest of the fatherhood series, and William Bendix one of the best and unfortunately slightly less well-known of the TV dads. Hugh Beaumont as Ward Cleaver in Leave It To Beaver. Possibly my favorite of this bunch, Ward was a working dad, a quite modern and progressive parent, blessed with a keen wit and not unaware of the absurdities of raising kids in post-war America. He'd often mention how he was trying to parent differently from his own father, who in a different time had not spared the rod and certainly wouldn't have discussed disciplinary ethics with his kids before meting out punishment. Ward Cleaver liked his wife and wasn't afraid to show it, and also seemed to like his two boys, Wally and Theodore aka Beaver. He was a terrific father figure and funny as heck, too. Oo La La! (A quote from the wonderful episode "June's Birthday" where Beaver gives his mother a gaudy blouse with French pictures on it.)

William Schallert as Martin Lane in The Patty Duke Show. I've been watching this show lately and have been so impressed by Schallert's calm, decent, educated, and appreciative portrayal of the man who had to put up with his daughter Patty's schemes. The Patty Duke Show is very urban -- Martin Lane is the editor of a big NYC newspaper -- and Schallert brings a keen intelligence to the role, perfectly in tune with what you'd expect an editor to exhibit. No harried suburbanite or line worker, Martin Lane is upper middle class without being a snob, and authoritative without being a bully. What a treasure! Love that Poppo! Buddy Ebsen as Jed Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies. Jed, the lucky mountain man who discovered oil, remained the same unaffected and kind person even after he moved to Beverly Hills -- quite a feat, then or today. He was an understanding father to his animal-loving voluptuous daughter Ellie May, who also retained her sweetness amid the money-grubbing snobs of the Hills. He was the patriarch of a very nutty bunch, including his cantankerous mother-in-law and goofy nephew, but never lost his humanity or center. Whee Doggies! Happy Father's Day!