By mid season, Beaver would start becoming more interested in girls. There were even segments in which either Lumpy or Eddie would have almost an entire episode, but when Beaver became the central character, it lacked something, becoming mediocre episodes. With the writers sensing this, the scripts placed Beaver in support in several episodes while stories revolved around more on Wally and his friends. By then, Beaver, the central titled character has turned 14, losing his innocent and boyish charm and becoming least interesting character. During the final season, the instrumental theme song remained the same, though jazzed for its final season (1962- 63). With each passing season viewers got to see the show's new opening, watching the boys growing and maturing to young adults by season six. At first, Lumpy was the neighborhood bully who hounded Wally and the Beav, to eventually became one of Wally's closest friends. Along the way, Chester and Tooey were just phased out, and a new character, Clarence "Lumpy" Rutherford (Frank Bank) stepped in. Over the years, characters have come and gone, but the writers managed to find new friends for Beaver while they kept and expanded the Eddie Haskell character, played to perfection by Ken Osmond, one of the most memorable and "smooth" characters created and developed. Beaver's closest friend during the first couple of seasons was the chubby Larry Mondello, while Wally's pals were Chester, Tooey and the conniving Eddie Haskell. It's obvious that the writer or writers who developed this program had fond memories of what it's like being a child, for that many of the show's characters, mainly children, could easily be identified by someone we at one time had know in our youth, one character in particular being Judy Henson, the school's pony tailed tattle-tale, teacher's pet and know-it-all. Like most long-running shows, this one lasting six seasons, the earlier episodes are the best, mixing comedy, charm and well scripted dialog.
"Leave It to Beaver" geared to its younger viewers when first aired, but today, the children who loved it back then are either adults or grandparents currently sharing their TV memories with their young ones. The aforementioned family comedy shows had its share of reruns before slowly disappearing to Limbo, replaced by newer programs to its Color- oriented viewers, but this innocent black and white show which was done on film and not on video tape and to date never colorized to attract younger viewers, still entertains as is. While television of the 1950s and '60s had its share of family shows during its black and white age, including "Father Knows Best" with Robert Young and Jane Wyatt "The Donna Reed Show" (with Donna Reed and Carl Betz) "Dennis the Menace" (starring Jay North) and later, the long running series, "My Three Sons" (1960-1972) with Fred MacMurray, it seemed unlikely that "Leave It to Beaver" would become the one sit-com to survive and continue to air on television, whether locally or on cable, decades after its concluding episode in 1963.
However, neither parent was omniscient indeed, the series often showed the parents debating their approach to child rearing, and some episodes were built around parental gaffes."Leave It to Beaver" (1957-1963) is a family show set in the suburban town of Mayfield that focuses on the Cleaver family: Ward (Hugh Beaumont), father and accountant June (Barbara Billingsley), wife and stay-at-home Mom and their two boys, Wally (Tony Dow) a teenager, and their youngest, Theodore, better known to everyone as "Beaver" (Jerry Mathers). In a typical episode Beaver got into some sort of trouble, then faced his parents for reprimand and correction.
Like several television dramas and sitcoms of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Leave It to Beaver is a glimpse at middle-class, white American boyhood.
Leave It to Beaver is one of the first primetime sitcom series written from a child's point-of-view. These veterans of radio and early television found inspiration for the show's characters, plots, and dialogue in the lives, experiences, and conversations of their own children. The show was created by writers Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher. The show has attained an iconic status in the US, with the Cleavers exemplifying the idealized suburban family of the mid-20th century. The show also starred Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont as Beaver's parents, June and Ward Cleaver, and Tony Dow as Beaver's brother Wally. Leave It to Beaver is an American television situation comedy about an inquisitive and often naïve boy named Theodore "The Beaver" Cleaver and his adventures at home, in school, and around his suburban neighborhood.