Many of you know that my aliases for this blog are based on the Leave It to Beaver sitcom from the early 1960's. However, some of you new readers may not realize this. My husband is Ward, my sons are Wally and Theodore (Beaver) and I am June. When I chose these aliases for my blog world, I didn't think much about them except there were the right number and gender in the Cleaver family, and they were from a show that made me smile. I remembered that Beaver and Wally always got themselves into scrapes that frustrated their parents but from which ultimately everyone learned a lesson. Since picking the Cleavers, I've leaned a few other things about the show:
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver |
--The makers of the show wanted to get gentle laughs. If anything got a really big laugh, they changed the script to make it more of a chuckle or smile.
--June wore pearls and heels when she was cooking and cleaning around the house. This was often made fun of because it was so unrealistic. However once I heard an interview with Barbara Billingsley, the actress who played June, and she explained why those wardrobe choices were made. Apparently the hollow at the bottom of her neck looked strange on film, so they had her wear pearls around her neck to fix the problem. Also, as the actors who played Wally and Beaver grew, they wanted her to be taller than them so she would to still look authoritative as a parent. Thus, they had her put on heels.
-- Leave it to Beaver was the first TV show in which the kids were the main focus and not the parents.
So there you have it. Leave it to Beaver in a nutshell. Gotta go now because Ward is calling.
But Wait There's More:
If you read here very often and you've been paying attention, you may have noticed that several other major and minor Leave It to Beaver characters show up in my posts. They are aliases for various other family members and friends.
