MovieChat Forums > Leave It to Beaver (1957) Discussion > Early Beaver vs later Beaver

Early Beaver vs later Beaver

posted 3 years ago by stepaperry81 (46)
5 replies | jump to latest

The Beaver character was written 1957-1959 nieve and very kiddish because he was 7-10 years old vs he was written non the last two seasons he was still be written the same except for maybe a couple shows. Was all for plot purposes and because trying the thing with Wally wouldn’t have worked? Was Beaver’s actions towards showing he liked girls as well as how he acted girls just because he was only 13 and 14 so was mostly just not comfortable about them as most wouldn’t really have been? Was he athletic or completely unathetic? Why did he still so easily douped?

[–] Kowalski (63923) 3 years ago

Early Beaver vs later Beaver

NO HAIR VS GREY AFRO

[–] Owlwise (1513) 3 years ago

Early Beaver is better overall, as Jerry Mathers lost much of his natural innocence & charm as he got a little older, without gaining much acting skill. Tony Dow, on the other hand, became a good actor with a natural ease & sense of humor. That's why later season of the show tend to feature more stories about Wally.

I don't think the writers quite knew what to do with Beaver as he was growing up, so they kept putting him into ridiculous situations that would have been funny & delightful in the first couple of seasons, but seemed leaden & unfunny in the later seasons. He was already too old for those sort of stories, but they couldn't find more age-appropriate ones for him.

[–] TheTwoYutes (238) 3 years ago

Early Beaver was great and very satisfying. Later Beaver was kind of dry and chafing.

[–] stepaperry81 (46) 3 years ago

Were there any good episodes for Theodore Beaver good acting and stories well written for his age?

[–] TandyMan (10668) 3 years ago

I ended up watching this show backwards cause of how i'm catching them on MeTv. Just saw all the later episodes, now we're cycled around to the early ones. Wow, the early show is way better, way more true to concept. Much more the slice of wholesome pie I always heard about. The later show certainly isn't bad, just felt a lot more like a typical sitcom.