Forget what you've been told...

xanthippe_s

I find it somewhat odd that this show is constantly maligned as being absurdly wholesome. Of course, it ran from 1957 to 1963, a time when a person on television or in a film couldn't even say 'pregnant' in reference to a woman who was expecting a child, so of course the programmes aren't going to be fraught with tales of drunken binges, wild sex and murder. The Cleaver's lives are relatively vanilla.

Television today frequently portrays the opposite end of the spectrum, and is perhaps less accurate and relevant to now than Leave it to Beaver was in the '50s and '60s. Not everyone's family in the 2000s is broken up, not every child is a drug addict, not everyone's brother is in jail. Leave it to Beaver is a refreshing change, and this is coming from a girl in her early twenties.

I don't watch any network tele because I find heavily sarcastic humour dull, and the kids portrayed are MTV caricatures. I'm not religious, and in fact have the mouth of a dock walloper (thank you Paul Drake of Perry Mason), so it's not that I pine for 'wholesome' or 'moral' programming. The acting is natural, the characters quite endearing (except maybe Judy Hensler and Eddie Haskell, although they do have their places). Poor Beaver is sort of a Charlie Brown figure, frequently getting the short end of the stick. Ward and June are pretty cool parents, although Ward is sometimes kinder to athletic Wally than to sensitive Beav, and June has shown her WASPish snooty side in an episode or two. To quote Beaver,  'They don't hit me too much...' -- you can't argue with that.

The stories don't always end perfectly happy as one is often lead to believe. I watch a handful of old television programmes and like to consider myself pretty grounded (albeit a bit strange, admittedly) and I really don't see that much of a difference between the way people behave in these shows and now in 'real' life.

Purge yourself of all the rubbish that others have fed you about it being corny and camp and just enjoy it for what it is: an awesome show.

score /10

xanthippe_s 16 October 2003

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0059812/