Leave It to BeaverLeave It to Beaver is a 1950s and 1960s family-oriented American television situation comedy about an inquisitive but often naive boy named Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver (portrayed by Jerry Mathers), about his adventures at home, in school, and around his suburban neighborhood. The show also starred Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont as Beaver's parents, June and Ward Cleaver. The show has attained an iconic status in the United States, with the Cleavers exemplifying the idealized suburban family of the mid-twentieth century. One of the first primetime sitcom series filmed from a child's point-of-view, the show was created by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, two radio and early television writers, who found inspiration for the show's characters, plots, and dialogue in the lives, experiences, and conversations of their own children. Like several television dramas and sitcoms of the late 1950s and early 1960s (Lassie and My Three Sons, for example), the show is a glimpse at middle-class, American boyhood. A typical episode features Beaver getting into some sort of trouble and facing his parents for reprimand and correction. However, neither parent is depicted as omniscient; indeed, the series often showed the parents debating their approach to child rearing, and some episodes are built around parental gaffes.
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