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Leave It to Beaver (1957)

1957 · Classic TV series

  • Comedy
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Synopsis

Leave It to Beaver is an American television sitcom that follows the misadventures of a suburban boy, his family and his friends. It starred Jerry Mathers, Tony Dow, Hugh Beaumont, and Barbara Billingsley. CBS first broadcast the show on October 4, 1957, but dropped it after one season. ABC picked it up and aired it for another five years, from October 2, 1958, to June 20, 1963. It proved to be a scheduling challenge for both networks, moving through four time slots (Wednesday through Saturday evenings) over the course of its run. The series was produced by Gomalco Productions from 1957 to 1961, and then by Kayro Productions from 1961 to 1963. It was distributed by Revue Studios. While Leave It to Beaver never broke into the Nielsen Ratings top 30 in its six-season run, it proved to be much more popular in reruns. It also led to an unsuccessful 1997 film of the same name. The show is built around young Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver (Jerry Mathers) and the trouble he gets himself into while navigating an often-incomprehensible, sometimes illogical world. Supposedly, when he was a baby, his older brother Wallace "Wally" (Tony Dow) mispronounced "Theodore" as "Tweedor". Their firm-but-loving parents, Ward (Hugh Beaumont) and June Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley), felt "Beaver" sounded better. Conversely, Mathers has said that the real reason for the name "Beaver" is that one of the show's writers, Joe Connelly, had a shipmate named "The Beaver" in World War II; from that came the…

Synopsis from TVmaze

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Language
English

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