Chuckles and Aliases

 Most days, I get up and watch the news crawler on one of the national morning shows. Occasionally, Ward will join me, and we will discuss the world's happenings. Most of what is reported is difficult to process because either it is an unavoidable tragedy or because of the stupidity of one person or another. So, after getting a quick overview of the world, I turn to my antidote, a Leave It to Beaver rerun. The Beaver may get in a jam, but it gets solved in 30 minutes with kindness and wisdom. It's the "palate cleanser" I need to start the rest of my day.

If you haven't been reading here for a while, you may not know that the aliases I use on the blog are characters from Leave It to Beaver. I'm June, my husband is Ward, my older son is Wally, and my younger son is Theo, short for Theodore, Beaver's Real name. Others with reoccurring rules are Miss Landers, Beaver's teacher, Aunt Martha, Uncle Billy, and Mary Ellen, Wally's girlfriend. 

Below is the original post on my blog where I explained the names. It goes into a little more detail and has a few facts about the TV show.

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Leave it to Beaver or the Family We're Based On

You may have noticed that my family has the names Ward, June, Wally, and Theodore. Some of you may have thought that those were our real names. However, some of you may have realized that those are our aliases based on names from the TV show Leave It to Beaver. Leave It to Beaver was a situation comedy that aired from 1957 to 1963 and is still in reruns today. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver

The show revolved around the Cleaver Family—Ward and June, the parents, and Wally and Theodore (also known as the Beaver), their sons. The premise was that Beaver and Wally got themselves into scrapes that frustrated their parents but from which, ultimately, everyone learned a lesson.

When I chose these aliases for my blog world, I didn't think much about the significance, except there were the correct number and gender in the Cleaver family, and they were from a show that made me smile when I thought about it.

In this post, I had planned to discuss the details of the Cleaver family and compare and contrast them with my family. However, that's too much work, so I'm just going to tell you a couple of things I found interesting about the making of the show that resonates with me.

--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. While I love a good belly laugh, the gentle laugh fits with my basic philosophy of life: Everything in moderation.

--June often wore pearls and heels when cooking and cleaning around the house. This is often made fun of because it was so unrealistic. However once I heard an interview with the actress that 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 to fix the problem. Also, as the actors grew that played Wally and Beaver they wanted her to be taller than them to still look authoritative as a parent. Thus, they had her put on heels. While you'll never find me cooking and cleaning in either pearls or heels, this reminds me that snap judgments are often wrong. Many times, you just don't know all of the facts.

-Leave It to Beaver was the first TV show in which the kids were the main focus, not the parents. I don't have anything meaningful to say about this except that I find it interesting.

Another time, I may go into individual episodes, but for now, you know where our blog names came from.

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.

Until next time...