Posted on 06/02/2014 1:12:01 PM PDT by lowbridge
Happy Birthday Jerry Mathers! Born June 2, 1948
(Excerpt) Read more at jerrymathers.com ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUw2fIa0dSI
And another one about the making of the scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fkZdz4Vz10
Watch closely, and read the subtitles when the actors are speaking. :-)
1948?
Gee, Wally, old people are creepy!
Beaver: Hey, Wally? Does Lumpy's dad ever give you the creeps?
Wally: I'll say. Does he ever.
Beaver: I thought so.
Happy birthday, Beaver!! I love that show. It’s even funnier watching it as an adult than it was watching it as a kid. I love the morals and values it advanced, and I love the characters.
Can’t believe no one has posted the rumor he died in Vietnam.
Too embarrassed to ask his dad what to do about the threatening letters he's getting from the company demanding payment, he musters enough courage to go all by himself to a lawyer who's a friend of his dad's, with all his savings -- 64 cents -- to pay him for his services.
The lawyer figures it out pretty quick, tells Beaver that he can take care of it (by writing an equally threatening letter back to them), and gives him a little lecture about WHY he's going to take that 64 cent fee: So Beaver would learn and remember that any time he gets into the kind of trouble where he can't go to his own father to help him out, it's going to cost him! {^) Which is of course VERY true.
Jerry Mathers was actually a pretty good actor, able to play Beaver believably -- a "dumb" kid who wasn't as dumb as he looked, and who had real guts (even Wally was impressed that little Beav went all by himself to a lawyer) when necessary.
Donna Reed too.
What I saw of it appeared to be some sort of an indictment against the advertising industry and Early 1960s American culture. The slamming of the Cleavers as being typical was brutal, and the shallowness of the television culture altogether was simply unrestrained. Brutal but subtle commentary that clearly targeted the ‘Leave it to Beaver’ show as one of the most offensive of all Hollywood TV productions.
That was my take on what I watched of it,
When I’m kidding someone, I still say “I’m giving them the business”.
One of the great American social institutions of the Fifties - and a lot of fun, too.
Happy Birthday, Beave.
low,as we have discussed—one of my favorite shows as a young child, growing up in a chaotic household, trying to find what was “normal”.
My other favorite was “Ozzie and Harriet”
Exactly. I STILL look for the normal in (old) sitcoms such as this.
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