Has there ever been a family sitcom quite as wholesome as Leave it to Beaver? A young boy, his older brother, their loving parents, their friends, and – well, that’s it. It’s hard to think of another show that was so simple, so sweet, and so much innocent fun, as we watched Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver (played by the chubby-cheeked Jerry Mathers) navigate the highlights and challenges of growing up for six all-American seasons.
Those who tuned in for the whole run watched Beaver move through elementary school to teenhood, while his brother Wally (Tony Dow) went from pre-teen to high school graduate. But do you remember what happened when the show ended?
Why did Leave it to Beaver get cancelled?
It’s also hard to think of another show so deeply infused into pop culture — almost everyone can tell you who “the Beav” is, or that Mrs. Cleaver wore pearls and heels while she did housework. So it’s easy to forget that Leave it to Beaver was hardly a ratings winner during its original prime time run. In fact, after debuting the show in 1957, CBS dropped it entirely after just one season due to low viewership. The show was briefly relegated to TV purgatory until ABC decided to pick it up, where it survived another five seasons. Even then, the show never even cracked the Top 30 ratings winners, only gaining popularity later on in syndication.
But it wasn’t canceled due to low ratings. While Leave it to Beaver was a family show with storylines and episodes that often revolved around Wally or other family members, it still largely focused on Jerry Mathers, and both the actor and his character had reached a natural endpoint for the show.
With Wally (spoiler alert!) moving away to attend college, continuing the show simply would have meant watching “The Beav” retread the same teen territory that we watched his older brother deal with seasons earlier, only without the older brother/younger brother dynamic that made the series so special. Continuing the show simply wouldn’t have worked.
Professionally, the timing was also perfect for Jerry Mathers, who desperately wanted the experience of attending high school. With the show’s namesake ready to leave, it was time to say goodbye to the Cleavers. Luckily, they did so in a way that didn’t just end the show – it made television history.
What happened in the final episode?
Leave it to Beaver’s series finale, entitled “Family Scrapbook,” aired on June 20th, 1963 and broke new ground as primetime’s first traditional series finale. While previous show’s ended their runs with standard, unexceptional episodes, this marked the first time that a series of this nature finished off with a special show that wrapped up ongoing storylines and gave its characters a proper farewell — a genuine reflection of the bond that the show had created with its audience.
The premise of the episode is simple, as supermom June Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley) finds an old scrapbook containing photos of the family and their friends through the years. The book brings together June, her husband Ward (Hugh Beaumont), Wally and Beaver, as they leaf through the pages and reminisce about some of their funniest moments and fondest memories (complete with plenty of flashbacks to classic episodes throughout the series).
With both Cleaver kids on the cusp of entering new chapters in their lives, it’s the perfect way for these characters to say goodbye to the good ol’ days – and an even better way for fans to say goodbye to the Cleavers (or so we thought).
Long live the Beaver: the sequels
While many rightfully assumed that Leave it to Beaver’s departure from primetime TV signified the end of the show, it turns out it was only the beginning. Catching on with newer generations of fans year after year in syndication, the show organically transformed from a modest hit to an iconic classic until there was enough demand to do the unthinkable – bring back the Beaver!
In 1983, a made-for-TV movie, Still The Beaver, premiered, reuniting the entire original cast (aside from Hugh Beaumont, who sadly passed away the year prior). The movie caught up with a now-divorced Beaver wrestling with the challenges of single fatherhood, June’s campaign to join the Mayfield City Council, and the entire family’s struggle to move on without the ultimate father figure, Ward.
Still The Beaver’s success paved the way for an even bigger return, as The Disney Channel launched The New Leave it to Beaver in 1984, eventually moving over to TBS and giving us five more years of the Cleavers.
Throughout this revival, we got to watch Beaver team up with old pal Lumpy Rutherford to run Ward’s old firm, June move in with her youngest son and grandchildren, Wally balance his career as an attorney with fatherhood, and even weaselly school chum Eddie Haskell mentor his equally cringy son Freddie.
With Mathers now 76 years old and Tony Dow sadly leaving us back in 2022, another Cleaver reunion seems unlikely, but the memories remain of the wholesome family that we happily welcomed into our living rooms through the years. Thanks for the memories, Beav!
