Pleasantville, if you will… So, I spent a lot of time considering which show should represent this category. And after having covered the best character-driven show of the ’50s ( I Love Lucy) along with the best franchised example of this form ( Our Miss Brooks) , the best idea-driven show of the ’50s ( Phil Silvers) along with its most popular alternative ( The Honeymooners), and the best adaptation of a radio mainstay ( Burns And Allen), I knew I had to devote time to at least ONE of the era’s many family-orientated “warmedies” - the category that has since been derisively used to define the decade’s entire output as a sanitary, homogenized, idealized dream of postwar America, which prized the nuclear family, the white picket fence, and an adherence to societal conventions. Because even if it isn’t among the best sitcoms of the 1950s, it offers an accurate, albeit slightly more favorable, study of one of the decade’s most dominant genres: the domestic comedy. Yet I still wanted to feature the series. Oh, sure, I could have committed to my ten per season standard, but I truly don’t think there are many episodic samples of Beaver that deserve to be hailed alongside the gems from other shows in this era. In fact, my qualified appreciation of this series is why we’re “doubling up” in our coverage, discussing two seasons a week, instead of the usual one. And out of its premiering decade, I’ve since acknowledged that the series doesn’t come close to matching the excellence of, say, I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, or The Phil Silvers Show. Today, I don’t consider it an exemplary model of the American situation comedy because I don’t rate it highly using the metrics that typically inform my interests - comedic success and character usage. Growing up, Leave It To Beaver was a staple of my classic TV diet. Leave It To Beaver stars BARBARA BILLINGSLEY as June Cleaver, HUGH BEAUMONT as Ward Cleaver, TONY DOW as Wally Cleaver, and JERRY MATHERS as The Beaver.
Welcome to a new Sitcom Tuesday! This week, we’re starting coverage on the best of Leave It To Beaver (1957-1958, CBS 1958-1963, ABC), which is currently available in full on DVD!