The man of my dreams. He still has Sunday dinner with June every week!


Lumpy, Eddie, June, Beaver and Wally today. Where's June's NECK!

Leave it to Beaver was an old show even when I was a kid. Still, I couldn't get enough of it. Were there really dads who left in a suit in the morning, and then returned promptly at five p.m. with a briefcase? Was there such a thing as a mom who didn't yell and scream, and wore high heels to make meatloaf? I vowed when I was very young, to not only find out, but to have this kind of family myself one day. (which I was able to accomplish for ten years, I might proudly add)

Anyway, I became a mom, and forced my kids to watch it. Once they got past the HORROR of it being in black and white, they became big fans on their own. This show is great to this day for five reasons:
1. Wally. He's handsome, nice without being corny, witty and charming. He was just about as likable as anyone you could imagine. His friendship with the annoying Eddie Haskell even made sense, because throughout humankind, every popular teenager has their unpopular, ugly, stupid or slutty friend that their cool friends don't like.
2. Ward. He was stern and a little stiff, but he did have a good sense of humor. And like Wally, he wasn't above making fun of "The Beaver." In fact, you could tell that Ward, and Hugh Beaumont himself didn't much care for the gutwrenching Jerry Mathers. Oh, sure, he was a doll for the first season. But his mutation started young.. (and, continues to this day)
3. Judy Henshler. Brilliant casting. Every person who has gone to school has the ugly class know-it-all tattletale, and Judy was perfect. SO UGLY too!
4. Larry Mondello. Always hungry, with a fat overprotective mom, and a (never seen but implied) abusive father, Larry was portrayed as the single biggest cause of Beaver's misery. I love that he carried sandwiches, cookies, and bananas in his pockets.
5. Eddie Haskell, of course. Did we really hate him? Hell, no, we admired his false confidence, and sympathized with and understood the true sensitive side of Eddie.

But we always knew Beaver was an asshole. On the show, and in real life, because after all, Jerry Mathers never learned to act. He never improved! In fact, watch for this next time you see the show: in every scene Beaver has with someone else and they are saying their lines, you can clearly see him mouthing their lines so he'll know when it's time for him to talk. June was really extra stupid, I mean the lines they gave her. She was annoying, ignorant and beyond boring. But she wasn't an asshole.

Hugh Beaumont didn't like Jerry Mathers, and asked that his dressing room be moved farther away from the little puke. Tony Dow was so nice that he pretended to like Jerry, and Barbara Billingsly (Nice name, by the way..so corny) was so stupid that she actually did like him. So, in 1996, I had the opportunity to meet Beaver and Eddie at a "meet and greet" (LOL!) in Des Moines, Iowa at The Home and Garden Show. My heart pounded with anticipation when I saw the billboard with their grinning faces! My finger shook as I dialed Ticketmaster... would there be any tickets left for The Home Show?

Score! I was able to get four tickets, and spent the next five weeks watching every episode of Leave it to Beaver, preparing my kids for the heart-stopping excitement that lay ahead of us. The day we were to meet them, I got up early and washed my Great Clips hair, barely able to breathe. I was going to meet Beaver and Eddie... face to face! I insisted we leave early, as I was certain there would be a crowd. The home show opened it's doors at 5 pm, but my family and I were there in the parkinglot, at 4:12. As we got closer, I said to my kids, "We'll just follow the crowd", when they asked how we would find them.

As I stood in the line of 9 people, (including the 4 of us) I looked up, and they were right in front of me. Yes, Beaver was even uglier in person! But wait... REALLY ugly people ARE NICE, aren't they? Wrong. There had already been reports around Des Moines of Beaver's unfriendly and DIVA LIKE behavior. He had been mean to a group of "fans" at The Diner, Des Moines' 50's restaurant. I excitedly handed him a greeting card with his picture on it to sign it for me. Always the jokester, I over dramatized my getting to meet him, saying, "This is my lifelong dream!" and big, fat, gravel faced Jerry Mathers, who had no neck or personality, sneered at me.

He signed Your Friend, Jerry Mathers, but I handed the card back and said "Will you sign it "Your BEST Friend?" and he didn't want to! He looked all put out, and let out a big sigh, like he had anything better to do! I was like, "Oh, come on! So what!" and Ken Osmond, the lovable Eddie Haskell was disgusted by Beaver too. He was rolling his eyes at us, and saying "Just do it, Jerry!" Eddie, who smelled of strong liquor, was really nice and we spent about a half hour with him, and ignored the troll who the world has come to hate as Beaver Cleaver.