Leave it to Beaver to set the record straight!
Leave It to Beaver is upheld as this paragon of suburban idealism. The show has become synonymous with a white picket-fenced, middle-class, clean-cut America that may or may not have existed. The show has been politicized in the decades since and presented as a template for “the way things were” before some boogeyman pushed society forward.
But, according to one of the show’s stars, we may be remembering incorrectly. Hindsight may not be 20/20, at least to hear Jerry Mathers tell it. And he’d know: Mathers starred as Beaver, the title character and a stand-in for any American kid who has ever watched the show.
While Beaver may have been a great cipher for the average child tuning in, Mathers says the rest of the show’s details may be critically misremembered.
In 2003, Mathers was utilizing his fame to speak up about the skin disease psoriasis. He was personally afflicted and used his platform to shed a little light on folks’ dissatisfaction with the industry’s top treatments. It was a noble cause and allowed him to get out and make the rounds, talking to various media outlets to passionately spread the word.
But, because Mathers was still so closely associated with his earlier character the Beaver, he naturally commented on Leave It to Beaver as well. The insight Mathers provides is closer to the source than any author writing about the show after the fact, and what he said to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram might surprise some readers.
Despite the way Leave It to Beaver exists in our collective memory, Mathers didn’t necessarily agree that it portrayed perfect, trouble-free life during the ’50s and ’60s.
“There’s a show on divorce, there’s a show on alcoholism, so there are subject matter that were very controversial for that time and are still quite poignant.”
