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Non-Film Score Discussion: Leave It To Beaver- Not so wholesome after all?

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	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 9:10 AM
	By:	Solium (Member)

I just happened to catch an episode of Leave It To Beaver. It's not a show I watched when I was younger.

In this episode a new girl at school was attracted to Beaver. She was referred as a creepy goon by other classmates including the Beaver. This new girl liked Beaver and asked if they could walk together to class and have lunch. Beaver turned her down rather rudely. The new girl was neither creepy or a goon. She was attractive, sweet and friendly.

Later on Beaver was having trouble finishing a three page report for one of his classes. One of his friends suggests he trick the new girl into doing his homework for him by pretending to like her. She falls for the con.

While she is doing the homework the girl learns Beaver has been calling her names behind her back and doesn't really like her at all. So she rewrites the report into something silly and hands it in to the teacher before he could read it.

Beaver is embarrassed in class when the teacher reads the report out loud. He received an "F" for the project and was required to have his parents sign a disciplinary note from the teacher.

Beaver was forced to admit he got a girl to write the report for him, but continues to disparage her right in front of his parents. Neither parent seemed bothered by his hideous treatment of this girl.

Unknown to him, the girl felt guilty afterwards, and told the teacher she wrote the bogus report. The teacher changed the grade to a "C".

Instead of feeling guilty over the way he treated this girl, Beaver instead says to his brother at the very end, "You can't trust girls for nothing", (even after she bailed him out!) and continued to refer to her as a creepy goon. His parents never reprimand him for his horrible behavior.

This was wholesome family entertainment in the 50's? WTF?!


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 9:25 AM
	By:	Justin Boggan (Member)

This new girl liked Beaver

LOL.

That is all.


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 9:28 AM
	By:	OnlyGoodMusic (Member)

Solium, get a life! Seriously, GET A LIFE! Maybe it's too late, maybe it's not.

Equally seriously, ANYthing that's overly PC makes me sick.


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 9:57 AM
	By:	Solium (Member)

This new girl liked Beaver

LOL.

That is all.

fraudenn slip!


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 10:00 AM
	By:	Solium (Member)

Solium, get a life! Seriously, GET A LIFE! Maybe it's too late, maybe it's not.

Equally seriously, ANYthing that's overly PC makes me sick.

So it's overly PC to teach a boy it's not right to make fun of a girl at school, then use her for your own selfish needs? And not get punished for it?


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 10:02 AM
	By:	Jim Phelps (Member)

So it's overly PC to teach a boy it's not right to make fun of a girl at school, then use her for your own selfish needs? And not get punished for it?

Yes, G_d damn it! Didn't you get the memo???

BTW, the greatest LitB moment was Beaver trying to lawyer his way out of Ward's intense grilling over whether or not he got a haircut at the barber shop. "I went to the barber shop...AND I got a hair cut!"

Brilliant beyond words. And when he joined the record club and was bopping along to generic Pete Rugolo-composed "Rock and Roll" music. lol


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 10:07 AM
	By:	Solium (Member)

I didn't realize he was the 50's/60's equivalent to Bart Simpson.


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 10:13 AM
	By:	Jim Phelps (Member)

I think a lot of that show's reputation comes from critics who parroted the same tired cliches about the era. Those dopes never even bothered to take notice how funny and...subversive... LitB actually was. Oh, and you want rotten? Forget Eddie Haskel, it was Beaver's friend Gilbert who was the smarmy little creep.


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 11:06 AM
	By:	Viscount Bark (Member)

There's an ep where the Beav says a very filthy swear word and gets in trouble for that!

Also, can anyone name the Stanley Kubrick movie that the Beaver (it's always the Beaver, never just plain Beaver) sneaks into?


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 11:17 AM
	By:	Ado (Member)


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 11:20 AM
	By:	Justin Boggan (Member)

Okay, now I'll be serious.

"Wholesome" is a word retroactively applied by people to many things from decades passed, like inoffensive television where a wife and husband would sleep in seperate beds, or in a film where an actress would tell a character oof by saying, "Oh, go fry an egg!".

Wholesome was never meant to mean things were as pure as the driven snow, and that TV has to be like that to be family programming.

It was a series with heart and plesant characters. It's sort of like a 1980's Saturday afternoon TV movie with moral points and ethical dilemma's. It's entirely wholesome if a character does something wrong but in the ends realizes the errors in their ways and does the right thing and makes them a better person afterwards, while not diving into heavy adult subject matter like sex, drugs, rape, murder, etc. I mean, it's "Leave It to Beaver", nto a movie about a hooker with a "heart of gold".

This tradition was carried on over the decades in various TV series, like "Full House". Though as decades passed they started pushing boundaries (alcohol, drugs experimentation, and more). I only wish we have modern versions of shows with intentions like that, while not being like you stepped out of Deloran while whistling holding a fishing pole.

And maybe we'll pass this time on names like "Beaver". Also, under no circumstances can anybody be named "Harry Baals" (you think I'm making that name up?).


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 11:36 AM
	By:	RoryR (Member)

Also, can anyone name the Stanley Kubrick movie that the Beaver (it's always the Beaver, never just plain Beaver) sneaks into?

Probably SPARTACUS. They were both made at Universal.


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 11:43 AM
	By:	Viscount Bark (Member)

Also, can anyone name the Stanley Kubrick movie that the Beaver (it's always the Beaver, never just plain Beaver) sneaks into?

Probably SPARTACUS. They were both made at Universal.

Correct! I hear that in a new remake of the series that the Beav will be sneaking into Paul Thomas Anderson films.


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 1:16 PM
	By:	jackfu (Member)

I always thought it pretty well reflected life in much of “Middle America” at the time. I knew many people who were like the characters on that show. Big brothers who were ok at home but could be jerks to you when they were with their pals. Friends who could be as close as a heartbeat one minute yet manipulative the next. Dads who often seemed difficult to please and sometimes irritable but would readily give their very lives for you. Moms who sometimes seemed more concerned with housework than how you were doing, yet could serve as buffers between you and Dad when you were in trouble. But you loved all those people as they did you and you were glad they were part of your life. I readily identified with “Beave” even though I was much younger. And back in the day, it was usually funny.


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 1:43 PM
	By:	filmusicnow (Member)


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 1:46 PM
	By:	filmusicnow (Member)

Also, can anyone name the Stanley Kubrick movie that the Beaver (it's always the Beaver, never just plain Beaver) sneaks into?

Probably SPARTACUS. They were both made at Universal.

It was the episode "Uncle Billy's Visit" and M.C.A. had bought Universal outright (they acquired the studio lot four years earlier from Decca Records). Revue Television didn't become Universal Television until 1963.


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 1:48 PM
	By:	T.J. Turner (Member)

I remember an episode when Eddie Haskell used the phrase "I don't give a flippin' ape!", and I latter repeated it. Then my mom got upset and said that it was just like swearing!


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 1:56 PM
	By:	Zooba (Member)

Yeah, I remember in that SPARTACUS episode, Ward asks the boys what they are going to see at the movies and Eddie does a big spiel talking about SPARTACUS. Nice cross promotion if the film was actually out at that time. I think they showed the movie theater and you could see a poster of SPARTACUS displayed, if I remember correctly.


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 2:01 PM
	By:	Solium (Member)

This was wholesome family entertainment in the 50's? WTF?!
I beg your pardon! That episode aired in 1962.

Well then, that makes all the difference.


	Posted:	Sep 26, 2013 - 2:02 PM
	By:	Zooba (Member)

A lot of the episodes contained, to quote their own term, a touch of "creepiness". I think there was one episode where one rich kid was planning a trip for a bunch of "the guys" to go up to his parents cabin at the lake and eat wieners and stuff out of cans. I always got a weird feeling that this kid just wanted to get Wally up there to get to know him better. He seemed to really be into Wally and I always just thought it bordered creepiness.

This may be an image of a deleted scene from the "Guys go to the Cabin at the Lake" episode. I got the impression the rich kid really wanted to see Wally in his swim trunks:

June once made a disparaging remark about someone being an Arab, or something to do with an Arab and it wasn't complimentary.

I liked the one where Wally went out with the girl that smoked and worked as a cashier at the movie theater. She took him to a beer joint and I think was close to seducing him. But of course Wally escaped in time. Pretty adult episode.

Non-Film Score Discussion: Leave It To Beaver- Not so wholesome after all?

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