48 Fun Facts About Leave it to Beaver

What is Beaver Cleaver's real first name?

The show's official explanation is that baby Wally mispronounced it as 'Tweedor', which became 'Beaver'.

In what fictional town do the Cleavers live?

The Cleavers live in Mayfield, a fictional suburban town whose state is never named; the boys attend the local grammar school and then Mayfield High.

Barbara Billingsley played which member of the family?

Barbara Billingsley played June Cleaver, the pearl-wearing mother of the family, for the show's entire 1957-63 run on both networks.

What was Hugh Beaumont, who played Ward, off screen when he was not acting?

A Methodist lay minister off screen, Hugh Beaumont earned a Master of Theology from the University of Southern California in 1946 and also directed a number of episodes.

Which actor played Wally Cleaver?

Tony Dow played the Cleavers' older son for the full 1957-63 run; a Junior Olympics diving champion, he won the part with almost no acting experience.

Which two-faced friend of Wally's is polite to adults and a wise guy to everyone else?

Eddie Haskell is the smarmy pal who flatters the Cleaver parents and needles everyone else; the name became American shorthand for an insincere charmer.

What is the real first name of Wally's oversized pal 'Lumpy' Rutherford?

Lumpy Rutherford's real first name is Clarence; Frank Bank played him, and Richard Deacon played his pompous father Fred, Ward's co-worker.

On which network did the show premiere in October 1957, before being dropped after one season?

The show premiered on CBS on October 4, 1957, and CBS dropped it after one season; ABC picked it up and ran it five more years, through June 1963.

How many episodes of the original series were made after the pilot?

The original series ran 234 episodes, six seasons of 39 each from 1957 to 1963, not counting the pilot; a 39-episode season was standard then.

Who created the series?

Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, longtime Amos 'n' Andy writers, created the series and based many plots on their own children; Connelly said the 'Beaver' nickname came from a wartime shipmate.

What was the title of the 1957 pilot episode?

The pilot was titled 'It's a Small World' and aired in April 1957 as an episode of the anthology series Heinz Studio 57, six months before the show itself premiered.

Which future Beaver character was played by a different actor, Paul Sullivan, in the pilot?

Ward was also recast; Max Showalter, billed as Casey Adams, played him in the pilot before Hugh Beaumont took over.

In the taboo-breaking toilet episode 'Captain Jack', what had the boys hidden in the tank?

An alligator, a mail-order baby one the boys kept in the toilet tank, was the hidden pet; network censors allowed the tank on screen but never the bowl.

What was the Cleavers' new address after they moved house in the third season?

From the third season onward the Cleavers lived at 211 Pine Street, having spent the first two seasons at 485 Mapleton Drive.

What is the title of the show's theme music?

The theme is 'The Toy Parade', a march composed by David Kahn, Melvyn Leonard and Mort Greene and rearranged several times over the six seasons.

Why did the actress who played June start wearing her trademark pearl necklace on the show?

To hide a hollow in her neck, Barbara Billingsley said, she wore pearls on camera; she later added high heels as her on-screen sons grew taller than her.

How well did the show do in the Nielsen ratings during its original six-season run?

It never broke into the top 30 of the Nielsen rankings in any of its six original seasons; its huge following was built in syndicated reruns that began in the 1960s.

In the first season, how old was Beaver and what year of school was he in?

Seven, second grade: that was Beaver's age and class in the first season, when Miss Canfield was his teacher; the boys then aged roughly in real time over six seasons.

Which of Beaver's friends is always seen munching an apple in the early seasons?

Larry Mondello, played by Rusty Stevens, is the plump pal forever munching an apple; he disappeared from the show partway through the run, after which Gilbert Bates became Beaver's chief sidekick.

Which classmate is Beaver's nemesis at school?

Judy Hensler, played by Jeri Weil, is the prissy tattletale who relishes getting Beaver in trouble in the early seasons; Mary Ellen Rogers and Julie Foster were the older brother's girlfriends.

Which of these actresses played Beaver's teacher Miss Landers?

Sue Randall played Miss Landers, Beaver's patient teacher from season two onward; Diane Brewster had been his season-one teacher, Miss Canfield.

What was the title of the final episode, broadcast on June 20, 1963?

'Family Scrapbook' closed the series on June 20, 1963, with the Cleavers leafing through old photographs as the show replayed scenes from earlier episodes.

What did young Jerry Mathers wear to his Leave It to Beaver audition?

A Cub Scout uniform, worn because he wanted to get to his den meeting afterward, charmed the producers into casting Jerry Mathers; he later became the first child actor to get a share of a show's merchandising revenue.

Before Beaver, Jerry Mathers appeared as a boy who finds a body in which Alfred Hitchcock film?

The Trouble with Harry (1955) cast Jerry Mathers as Arnie, the little boy who finds Harry's corpse in the woods; Shirley MacLaine, in her film debut, played his mother.

A persistent 1960s rumor claimed Jerry Mathers had been killed where?

In Vietnam, the rumor went, Mathers had died in combat; a serviceman with a similar name had been killed there, and Mathers, who served stateside in the Air National Guard, spent years denying it.

In 2007 Jerry Mathers made his Broadway debut as Wilbur Turnblad in which musical?

Hairspray gave Jerry Mathers his Broadway debut in 2007 as Wilbur Turnblad, Tracy's joke-shop-owning father; he was nearly sixty, half a century after first playing Beaver.

What career did Ken Osmond take up after being typecast by his role as Wally's smarmy friend?

Police officer was his second career: Ken Osmond joined the Los Angeles Police Department in 1970, and in 1980 he was shot on duty, two bullets stopped by his vest and a third ricocheting off his belt buckle.

A widely reported 1970s rumor claimed Ken Osmond had grown up to become which rock star?

Alice Cooper was the rock star the 1970s rumor turned him into; the shock rocker, born Vincent Furnier in Detroit, had no connection to the show, and Osmond spent years denying it.

In the 1980s revival, who played the two sons of the boys' smarmy old friend?

Ken Osmond's own children, Eric and Christian Osmond, played the two boys, Freddie and Bomber, in the 1980s revival series.

Which sci-fi series did the actor who played Beaver's older brother later direct episodes of?

Babylon 5 was one of the series he directed in the 1990s; he also directed episodes of Coach and Harry and the Hendersons.

Which art form did Beaver's on-screen brother exhibit at the Carrousel du Louvre in 2008?

Sculpture was his medium: he was among a handful of American sculptors chosen for the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts exhibition at the Carrousel du Louvre in 2008.

In the 1980 film Airplane!, the actress who played June plays a passenger who can speak what?

Jive is what her prim older passenger turns out to speak fluently, stepping in to translate for two jive-talking passengers in Airplane! (1980).

From 1984 to 1991 the actress who played June voiced Nanny on which animated series?

Muppet Babies (1984-91) used Barbara Billingsley as the voice of Nanny, the caretaker shown only from the knees down in green-and-white striped socks.

In the late 1940s the actor who played Ward starred in five films as which private detective?

Michael Shayne, the hard-boiled private eye created by Brett Halliday, was Hugh Beaumont's role in five low-budget PRC films released in 1946 and 1947.

What second career did Ward's actor take up after leaving show business?

Christmas-tree farmer was Hugh Beaumont's second act: after a stroke in the early 1970s he left acting to grow Christmas trees in Minnesota, and he died of a heart attack in 1982 while visiting his son in Munich.

What was the 1983 reunion TV movie that launched the Leave It to Beaver revival called?

Still the Beaver aired in March 1983 and reunited the surviving cast; Hugh Beaumont had died the year before, so June is written as a widow.

What are the grown-up Beaver's two sons called in the 1980s revival series?

Kip and Oliver are Beaver's sons in the revival, living with him at June's house after his divorce; Kipp Marcus played Kip and John Snee played Oliver.

The New Leave It to Beaver began on the Disney Channel and moved to which channel until 1989?

TBS carried it from 1986 to 1989 under the title The New Leave It to Beaver, after the revival began on the Disney Channel in 1984.

Who played Ward in the 1997 feature film?

Christopher McDonald played Ward opposite Janine Turner's June in the 1997 film, with Cameron Finley as Beaver and Erik von Detten as his older brother.

Who directed the 1997 feature film version, released by Universal?

Andy Cadiff, a veteran TV sitcom director, made the 1997 film for Universal; original cast member Barbara Billingsley cameoed as Aunt Martha.

Roughly how much did the 1997 film gross in North America, against a $15M budget?

$11 million, roughly, was the North American gross; Universal released it on August 22, 1997, and it fell out of theaters within weeks.

In the pilot, what do the boys collect 1,000 of, hoping to trade them for a bicycle?

Bottle caps are what the boys hoard in the pilot: a thousand of them, which they believe the dairy that issued them will redeem for a bicycle.

What is the name of the grammar school Beaver attends?

Grant Avenue Grammar School is Beaver's school through the early seasons, the place where Miss Canfield and then Miss Landers teach him.

Who played Ward Cleaver in the 1957 pilot, credited as Casey Adams?

Max Showalter, billed under his stage name Casey Adams, played Ward in the pilot; the part was recast with Hugh Beaumont before the series began.

Which children's author wrote three novels based on the show, starting in 1960?

Beverly Cleary, the creator of Ramona Quimby, wrote the show's tie-in novels for Berkley, beginning with Leave It to Beaver in 1960 and followed by Here's Beaver! in 1961.

Which later Universal series reused the Cleavers' house from 1969?

Marcus Welby, M.D. used the same Colonial Street house on the Universal backlot as Dr. Welby's home and office from 1969 to 1976.

Which adult-film actor was falsely rumoured to be the grown-up Ken Osmond?

John Holmes, the 1970s adult-film star, was the man a long-running rumor said Osmond had become; Osmond spent years publicly denying it.

Who gave the show's final-season theme a jazz-like arrangement?

Pete Rugolo, the former Stan Kenton arranger, scored the show's later seasons and gave the theme its swinging, jazz-like treatment for the final season.