“Gee, Wally, can you believe that our show is 50? I bet that’s even older than Dad.”
One can only imagine Beaver Cleaver saying that to his older brother when “Leave It to Beaver,” the quintessential 1950s sitcom about a family who’s as white bread as a loaf of Wonder, marks its golden anniversary today.
To celebrate, TV Land is airing a 24-hour “Beaverthon” starting Saturday night at 8, which kicks off with the rarely seen pilot episode. It stars Barbara Billingsley as June in all her pearl-necklaced glory, Casey Adams instead of Hugh Beaumont as dad Ward and Paul Sullivan rather than Tony Dow as Wally. And Jerry Mathers as the Beaver.
Still it’s the classic “Beaver” moments that will have fans tuning in: Beav giving himself a haircut; Wally growing a mustache to impress a girl; and, best of all, Beaver getting stuck in a billboard soup bowl.
If you can’t wait till Saturday or want to brush up on all things Cleaver, here are a few sources to check out.
www.TVLand.com is featuring “Best of Beaver” clips on its Web site, along with streaming video of the pilot and four other episodes, a photo gallery, “Beaver” trivia and a chance to win DVD sets of the show.
Eager “Beaver” fans will want to visit www.leaveittobeaver.org, which has info on all the episodes, cast member interviews, videos and, if you want to earn your doctorate in Beaverology, a thesis.
And the informative FAQ answers the urgent question “Whatever happened to Larry Mondello?” (Apparently Beaver’s best bud moved to New Jersey.)
If the Web isn’t your thing, check out “Call Me Lumpy: My Leave It to Beaver Days and Other Wild Hollywood Life” by Frank Bank, who played Wally’s no-so-bright pal Clarence “Lumpy” Rutherford.
In the book, which opens with a foreword by Ken Osmond, aka Eddie Haskell, Bank spends a few chapters recalling his years on “Beaver” and even more on his bedroom exploits.
But no one knows more about “Beaver” than the Beav himself.
In his autobiography “And Jerry Mathers as the Beaver,” Mathers, who recently finished a three-month stint on Broadway in “Hairspray” as Wilbur Turnblad, serves up warm remembrances about the cast, addresses his battle with dyslexia and puts an end to those rumors that he was killed in Vietnam.
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