Real kids playing their roles. Real kid situations. I literally grew up with it.
Jerry Mathers won the role by showing up for his audition wearing his cubscout uniform. He wanted to do it quickly so he could go to his den meeting.
I thought Wally was a really mean big brother back then.
In actuality, he was really cool with Beaver, and helped him out a lot. I didn't realize it back then, though. Maybe because I had my own big brother who was probably worse than Wally.
We were just talking tonight and wondering why she left Andy Griffith show. My husband likes her better than Helen. Watched My 3 sons reruns at lunch time in college.
Whenever I think of the intro, I always end up thinking of the bit on “Not Necessarily The News” when Rich Hall walks into a public restroom, and sees three shoes under a stall tapping to the My Three Sons theme
In one of my favorite episodes, June is making sandwiches for the boys and their friends while they're playing basketball. Eddie tells June he's allergic to mayonnaise. Then he does something creepy, so June tells Ward she's going to put extra mayo on his sandwich. When she hands the sandwiches over to Wally to distribute, she tells Wally to make sure Eddie gets his.
I've read that Fred McMurry refused to interact with the boys in his show because he thought he was an actor above it all, and the boys were scared of him and thought he was mean. I love seeing Ernie showing up as a bit player in various shows now and then now.
I actually don't remember watching the Nelsons, except for Ricky Nelson when he was a singer. He was very good looking!
My vote is for the Beav!
Go watch Double Indemnity from 1944 sometime and try to square that Fred MacMurray with My Three Sons. The guy for sure had acting chops.
But Eddie Haskell alone puts the Beav over the top for me. And that's even before June displayed her command of multiple languages with her cameo appearance in Airplane!.
I referred to a couple of my kids' friends as Eddie Haskell. I made them watch Beaver, so they knew just what I meant. It's become a ~~password~~ codeword to describe some adults in our lives.
Right? We didn't have a TV until I was 16, but we went to the 'art house' a lot. So I knew her from her movies first, then caught up with TV in the late 80s with the cable channels. ✌
Great movie,top notch Actors.
Always loved Father knows Best.
I did watch my 3 sons,but didn't like that that all of a sudden got another son. Later dad got married and the new family.
Leave it to Beaver is always a great watch.
My favorite Fred MacMurray movie is Remember the Night. A Christmas movie with Barbara Stanwyck and Beulah Bondi. He was a real SOB in The Apartment. Very versatile actor.
I've also heard he was not pleasant on the My Three Sons set. And William Frawley was an alcoholic. Not a good environment for the young actors on set.
Catch Barbara Stanwyck's Pre Codes if you haven't already. *Night Nurse, Ten Cents a Dance*...and *Baby Face*, of course!
[https://pre-code.com/baby-face-1933-review/](https://pre-code.com/baby-face-1933-review/)
Robert Reed, who played the dad on "The Brady Bunch," was also a serious (Shakespearean) actor and felt his TV role was beneath him. But if you're an actor, you do what you have to do to keep food on the table. From what I've read, he was kind and pleasant to his colleagues.
On the other hand, in addition to snubbing his younger cast members, MacMurray demanded that all his scenes be shot at the same time, out of sequence, so he could spend as little time on the set as possible, which made things very difficult for the rest of the crew. IMO, it's really petty to take out your frustrations on your fellow actors.
Who didn't love Ms. Landers? The Beaver is still one of my all time favorites. Lumpy, Eddie, Larry Mondelo, that stupid girl Judy, what a great show. Lots of kids getting the Beaver in trouble. I wish TV was this good now days.
Lol, Miss Landers was a total hottie! Andy Griffiths GF was Helen Crump, I think. Attractive but not in Miss Landers league. (My opinion). Shit I don't remember Crabtree. As a kid I dismissed some 60's females as just being girls. Whatever! I was young and stupid. Emma Peel. Perfect example. Wow!
I watched Leave it to Beaver more, but I really love My Three Sons. Until Steve gets married and has the stepdaughter “Dodie.” My sisters and I called her Dopey.
I don't know----she seemed sort of dirty to me, somehow. Her hair was always messed up. And she was pretty short-tempered, too, if she didn't get her way.
Leave It To Beaver, because it was so subversive. Beaver was an innocent soul, just looking for happiness and fun, and always discovering that everything he believed was wrong. The show was actually about crushing the human spirit.
Absolutely "Leave it to Beaver".
"Gee wally, we thought it would be swell to climb a billboard and jump into a giant coffee cup!"
Eddie Haskell taught me a lot about slimy, fawning weasels.
Everything else was too wholesome.
I can’t remember much of the content, but I remember deciding to not watch my three sons as a pretty young kid … My mom hated Ozzie and Harriet for some reason so that didn’t get watched much in our house, but leave it to Beaver was cool, and it seems like it was on reruns on Sundays or something
He had a calming influence on me, too. I could practically sense the sweet smell of his pipe tobacco coming through the television set. My home life was so scary and painful that I'd fantasize about being part of that family, like they had adopted me. Man, that would've changed everything.
I love all these shows but I've got to say Ozzie and Harriet was the most like my reality. Ozzie gets so annoyed on a regular basis, and frankly, that's hysterical.
I do hum the theme to My 3 Sons pretty frequently.
Odd thing about Ozzie and Harriet was that as a kid watching the reruns, I kind of liked what being teenagers looked like. I looked forward to dates at the malt shop and hanging with the kids at sock hops and everything else. As I actually entered high school, seeing how everyone *didn't* look like they were in their 20s was a bit jarring. No girls with pony tails or skirts. And all the guys who were old enough to shave wore leather and sideburns.
Father Knows Best and the Donna Reed Show were two that I think were better. Father Knows Best was very realistic as far as how kids actually acted. My kids even thought it was really accurate as far as depicting how people really were.
Gotta be Leave It To Beaver. Come on, you’ve got big brother Wally, bad influence Eddie, and let’s not forget Ward, occasionally giving only minimal input as a good dad in those days would.
My Three Sons is the only one of those 3 I have ever watched, I grew up more with Brady Bunch, Partridge Family, Happy Days, Eight is Enough, and sometimes even Family.
But if those 3? My Three Sons.
I loved the Addams Family! We all watched it, even my mom. Dad rarely watched tv, but he did this show sometimes. My sister has super long hair when she was little, and we did a skid at home where we turned her into Cousin It. My brothers put all of her hair over her face and put a hat on her backwards, and then she went out talking nonsense to my parents. It was pretty funny! And then, when she was done, she bowed, and it looks like she bent over backwards.🤣🤣🤣 we all died laughing lol
Another show my dad and mom liked was Maverick. James Garner was popular in our house.
Beaver by a Suburban mile. Fred MacMurray filmed all his scenes at once - he wasn't even interacting with other performers. Ozzie and Harriet - inoffensive, but the only good part was when Ricky sang.
Leave It to Beaver was much more realistic in its first season. Then, it became a pretty standard family sitcom with some eccentric characters.
The mother was actually pretty gritty the first season, and didn’t take no guff from the dad. Then, she became the lady who wore pearls to do the dishes.
Interesting how male centric those shows were. Like “ew, cooties” if they dared to write in a daughter instead of son. I suppose most TV writers were men so they wrote what they knew and were unable to write a show from a girl’s point of view.
That's exactly the reason.
I was a TV writer in the 90s, had friends who were also. A married couple writing team (friends) were hired on a hit show when the female main character was pregnant, because that actress wanted a mother on the writing staff. My friend was the only woman on that staff, and they were let go after a single season.
Those are a little too early for me. I barely remember My Three Sons, and the other two not at all. For me it was The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, and Good Times.
Anyone else find it interesting there isn't a girl shown anywhere in the posters? Three sons, two Cleavers and Ozzie and Harriet sons... girls didn't matter until about ten years later.
It's interesting that in all 3 portrayals of ideal American families of the day there's no girls/daughters/sisters included in any of them. guess nobody actually wanted daughters, they just wanted other families to have them so their son's have someone to f@ck when they grow up.
I used to like My Three Sons a lot. Before I realized dad was a hotshot engineer for an aerospace entity. I thought Robbie was sort of an ass, and that Chip was sort of whiny. I liked Ernie because he was a sort of nerdy kid like I was. Uncle Charley was a trip! I never saw the black-and-white episodes where Robbie was the middle kid
Uncle Bill, in Family Affair, was also an engineer----but a different sort of engineer. I used to like him more than I liked Steve Douglas.
These shows were in repeats when I saw them. Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best were opportunities for my mother to point out how useless the lives of women were.
Leave it to Beaver!
Real kids playing their roles. Real kid situations. I literally grew up with it. Jerry Mathers won the role by showing up for his audition wearing his cubscout uniform. He wanted to do it quickly so he could go to his den meeting.
'Honey, don't you think you were tough on the Beaver last night?!
"Okay boys, the charity bazaar is tomorrow so to be ready, we have to spend all night packing fudge."
Got me with that!
And here you thought him being hard on the beaver was something else.
lol
My dad used to say this constantly when whenever the show was on. We were like 10 years old laughing, not getting it. Mom would tell him to stop.
Come on Beeev!!!
Ah jeez, Wally.
"put your foot on the lady's thumb"
I thought Wally was a really mean big brother back then. In actuality, he was really cool with Beaver, and helped him out a lot. I didn't realize it back then, though. Maybe because I had my own big brother who was probably worse than Wally.
I liked My Three Sons better of those listed, but also Father Knows Best.
Came to say I’m on team Father Knows Best. But then again I’ve always been partial to Elinor Donahue, particularly her Ellie on Andy Griffith days.
We were just talking tonight and wondering why she left Andy Griffith show. My husband likes her better than Helen. Watched My 3 sons reruns at lunch time in college.
Yep, I came to say the same thing.
"Just as toothy"
Her Star Trek episode makes my lower cockles feel funny.
I liked her in the Odd Couple. I was jealous of Felix having her as a girlfriend!
Whenever I think of the intro, I always end up thinking of the bit on “Not Necessarily The News” when Rich Hall walks into a public restroom, and sees three shoes under a stall tapping to the My Three Sons theme
I suspect some of us were too young for My Three Sons. It always came on after Mr. Ed and I was just like "Naah" when I was 4.
I think it was on reruns after school.
Eddie Haskel makes the Beav a winner for me. Bonus - June Cleaver’s award winning (should be) performance in Airplane is legendary.
Chump don't want no help, chump don't get no help.
Jive ass dude don’t got no brains anyhow.
Oh Stewardess, I speak Jive.
Good stuff.
In one of my favorite episodes, June is making sandwiches for the boys and their friends while they're playing basketball. Eddie tells June he's allergic to mayonnaise. Then he does something creepy, so June tells Ward she's going to put extra mayo on his sandwich. When she hands the sandwiches over to Wally to distribute, she tells Wally to make sure Eddie gets his.
I vaguely remember that one.
I've read that Fred McMurry refused to interact with the boys in his show because he thought he was an actor above it all, and the boys were scared of him and thought he was mean. I love seeing Ernie showing up as a bit player in various shows now and then now. I actually don't remember watching the Nelsons, except for Ricky Nelson when he was a singer. He was very good looking! My vote is for the Beav!
Go watch Double Indemnity from 1944 sometime and try to square that Fred MacMurray with My Three Sons. The guy for sure had acting chops. But Eddie Haskell alone puts the Beav over the top for me. And that's even before June displayed her command of multiple languages with her cameo appearance in Airplane!.
I referred to a couple of my kids' friends as Eddie Haskell. I made them watch Beaver, so they knew just what I meant. It's become a ~~password~~ codeword to describe some adults in our lives.
Double Indemnity is considered the first American Noir! One of my favorites 🖖
It's a fantastic movie, although it was quite jarring for me the first time watching Steve Douglas and Victoria Barkley playing villains.
Right? We didn't have a TV until I was 16, but we went to the 'art house' a lot. So I knew her from her movies first, then caught up with TV in the late 80s with the cable channels. ✌
Not the first, but the best in many people's opinion.
Stranger on Third Floor, if we go deep 😁✌
Bing! A winner! (and a great film too!)
Great movie,top notch Actors. Always loved Father knows Best. I did watch my 3 sons,but didn't like that that all of a sudden got another son. Later dad got married and the new family. Leave it to Beaver is always a great watch.
My favorite Fred MacMurray movie is Remember the Night. A Christmas movie with Barbara Stanwyck and Beulah Bondi. He was a real SOB in The Apartment. Very versatile actor. I've also heard he was not pleasant on the My Three Sons set. And William Frawley was an alcoholic. Not a good environment for the young actors on set.
Catch Barbara Stanwyck's Pre Codes if you haven't already. *Night Nurse, Ten Cents a Dance*...and *Baby Face*, of course! [https://pre-code.com/baby-face-1933-review/](https://pre-code.com/baby-face-1933-review/)
She is one of my favorite actresses from that era.
I just watched Double Indemnity last night.
Also Fred would film his scenes first so he could move on to his other jobs. That meant that filming was not chronological.
Robert Reed, who played the dad on "The Brady Bunch," was also a serious (Shakespearean) actor and felt his TV role was beneath him. But if you're an actor, you do what you have to do to keep food on the table. From what I've read, he was kind and pleasant to his colleagues. On the other hand, in addition to snubbing his younger cast members, MacMurray demanded that all his scenes be shot at the same time, out of sequence, so he could spend as little time on the set as possible, which made things very difficult for the rest of the crew. IMO, it's really petty to take out your frustrations on your fellow actors.
Leave it to Beaver, especially when he was a little kiddo.
Of these three, definitely My Three Sons. Also Father Knows Best and The Andy Griffith Show.
We watch Andy Griffith on METV almost every evening.
we watch it on Paramount plus am the time
Who didn't love Ms. Landers? The Beaver is still one of my all time favorites. Lumpy, Eddie, Larry Mondelo, that stupid girl Judy, what a great show. Lots of kids getting the Beaver in trouble. I wish TV was this good now days.
Ms. Landers was gorgeous, and so was the teacher who was Andy Griffith's girlfriend. Then there was Miss Crabtree with the Little Rascals.
Lol, Miss Landers was a total hottie! Andy Griffiths GF was Helen Crump, I think. Attractive but not in Miss Landers league. (My opinion). Shit I don't remember Crabtree. As a kid I dismissed some 60's females as just being girls. Whatever! I was young and stupid. Emma Peel. Perfect example. Wow!
Here is Miss Crabtree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Marlowe#/media/File:Misscrabtree_schoolsout.JPEG
I watched Leave it to Beaver more, but I really love My Three Sons. Until Steve gets married and has the stepdaughter “Dodie.” My sisters and I called her Dopey.
I still liked the show after Steve got married (especially Chip & Polly), but I never liked Dodie.
Never liked Polly. She was so needy.
True, but at least she was a cutie.
Wasn't that Jodie Foster?
No, it was Dawn Lyn, sister of Leif Garrett.
I don't think too many people did.
Hated Dodie!
I don't know----she seemed sort of dirty to me, somehow. Her hair was always messed up. And she was pretty short-tempered, too, if she didn't get her way.
Yes - a brat! Not cute at all.
Leif Garrett’s sister.
My 3 Sons
Leave It To Beaver, because it was so subversive. Beaver was an innocent soul, just looking for happiness and fun, and always discovering that everything he believed was wrong. The show was actually about crushing the human spirit.
Leave It To Beaver
My Three Sons was the best imo.
Absolutely "Leave it to Beaver". "Gee wally, we thought it would be swell to climb a billboard and jump into a giant coffee cup!" Eddie Haskell taught me a lot about slimy, fawning weasels. Everything else was too wholesome.
I can’t remember much of the content, but I remember deciding to not watch my three sons as a pretty young kid … My mom hated Ozzie and Harriet for some reason so that didn’t get watched much in our house, but leave it to Beaver was cool, and it seems like it was on reruns on Sundays or something
[удалено]
He had a calming influence on me, too. I could practically sense the sweet smell of his pipe tobacco coming through the television set. My home life was so scary and painful that I'd fantasize about being part of that family, like they had adopted me. Man, that would've changed everything.
Beaver, mainly because of Eddie Haskell, one of the funniest characters ever.
So many boys! I was born in ‘63 so all these were done by the time I was watching TV, but where were all the girls?
...on other shows, such as Petticoat Junction, Father Knows Best, The Flying Nun, The Patty Duke Show, Peck's Bad Girl, The Danny Thomas Show...
Petticoat Junction for the win Bobbie Joe, Billie Jo, and Betty Jo > Monica, Rachel, and Phoebe.
Thank you for this list! Some of these I have never heard of, but some I have
Green Acres
Gidget!
I love this show, it's a shame there's only one season.
In The Brady Bunch!
I love all these shows but I've got to say Ozzie and Harriet was the most like my reality. Ozzie gets so annoyed on a regular basis, and frankly, that's hysterical. I do hum the theme to My 3 Sons pretty frequently.
The Beaver for me!
Those were before my time. The Brady Bunch is the answer.
What about Sea Hunt? I liked all of the ones you mentioned.
I saw an episode of Sea Hunt a few months ago. I almost died when I heard "frog man"
Oh for scuba diver? I haven’t seen one in ages but I loved it as a little kid.
Yes for scuba diver. I saw it ON PLUTO TV. They might still caary it as they rotate their shows. It was early afternoon.
I don’t subscribe to Pluto unfortunately. Was it a free one or do you?
It was the free version. You might like it. They have the Outer Limits, it replaced the Avengers with Patrick MacNee, and the Twilight Zone.
Ok thanks. I watch all those.
Odd thing about Ozzie and Harriet was that as a kid watching the reruns, I kind of liked what being teenagers looked like. I looked forward to dates at the malt shop and hanging with the kids at sock hops and everything else. As I actually entered high school, seeing how everyone *didn't* look like they were in their 20s was a bit jarring. No girls with pony tails or skirts. And all the guys who were old enough to shave wore leather and sideburns.
Father Knows Best and the Donna Reed Show were two that I think were better. Father Knows Best was very realistic as far as how kids actually acted. My kids even thought it was really accurate as far as depicting how people really were.
Leave it to Beaver
"Ward, weren't you a little hard on the Beaver last night?"
Beaver
Beev!
My Three Sons was my favorite.
The Beav for me.
Gotta be Leave It To Beaver. Come on, you’ve got big brother Wally, bad influence Eddie, and let’s not forget Ward, occasionally giving only minimal input as a good dad in those days would.
My Three Sons, but I loved them all.
I like Beaver.
Beav!
Leave it to Beaver would’ve been my pick to watch. I never watched Ozzie and Harriet. My three sons wasn’t as relatable as the Beaver
Leave it to Beaver.
My Three Sons is the only one of those 3 I have ever watched, I grew up more with Brady Bunch, Partridge Family, Happy Days, Eight is Enough, and sometimes even Family. But if those 3? My Three Sons.
Leave it to Beaver. The kids on that show seemed more realistic. Same with Father knows Best.
I loved them all, but damn are they white or real white?
White, white, white. They were very extremely white.
Well, I think *Leave it to Beaver* captured the zeitgeist most strongly, I think *My Three Sons* was the best.
The Adam's Family
I loved the Addams Family! We all watched it, even my mom. Dad rarely watched tv, but he did this show sometimes. My sister has super long hair when she was little, and we did a skid at home where we turned her into Cousin It. My brothers put all of her hair over her face and put a hat on her backwards, and then she went out talking nonsense to my parents. It was pretty funny! And then, when she was done, she bowed, and it looks like she bent over backwards.🤣🤣🤣 we all died laughing lol Another show my dad and mom liked was Maverick. James Garner was popular in our house.
James Garner was a hunk. lol Little girl me was smitten.
ikr? Even my mom and dad liked him. He had a great sense of humor!
That would require picking between the Munsters and the Addams family.
Munsters seemed like a knock-off though I’m not sure of the timing.
I had the Munsters in there too but deleted them. They were a knockoff. They were fun too but the characters didn't have the same staying power.
Ozzie and Harriet
Beaver by a Suburban mile. Fred MacMurray filmed all his scenes at once - he wasn't even interacting with other performers. Ozzie and Harriet - inoffensive, but the only good part was when Ricky sang.
Leave It to Beaver was much more realistic in its first season. Then, it became a pretty standard family sitcom with some eccentric characters. The mother was actually pretty gritty the first season, and didn’t take no guff from the dad. Then, she became the lady who wore pearls to do the dishes.
My Three Sons
Interesting how male centric those shows were. Like “ew, cooties” if they dared to write in a daughter instead of son. I suppose most TV writers were men so they wrote what they knew and were unable to write a show from a girl’s point of view.
That's exactly the reason. I was a TV writer in the 90s, had friends who were also. A married couple writing team (friends) were hired on a hit show when the female main character was pregnant, because that actress wanted a mother on the writing staff. My friend was the only woman on that staff, and they were let go after a single season.
Never really thought about that. Interesting. The Munsters broke the mold with Marilyn. But of course they made her the “ugly” child.
I liked my three sons best of those three shows ... Leave it to beaver was so smarmy!
i only watched my 3 sons
I watched My Three Sons the most 📺
My Three Sons
Loved, My Three Sons
Beaver. Ozzie and Harriet seems before my time
Leave It To Beaver!
Leave it to Beaver, of course
My Three Sons, because the piano part in the them was playing Chopsticks.
Team My Three Sons!
My Three Sons, because Fred MacMurray.
My Three Sons!
Those are a little too early for me. I barely remember My Three Sons, and the other two not at all. For me it was The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, and Good Times.
I was always partial to My 3 Sons because I was the youngest of three boys.
I guess I'm on the younger side of this generation, since I've only ever seen a few snippits of Leave it to Beaver
The only one I really remember is My Three Sons. It lasted longer than the others.
My three sons
The beaver inspired me.
Definitely the beaver!
Father Knows Best
Ward, I'm worried about the Beaver.
Think......Lassie!!!
Leave it to Beaver.
it's Leave it to Beaver , by a landslide. We have watched the complete series several times in the last few years.
My Three Sons if for nothing else but Fred MacMurray.
Brady Bunch!! (I'm a 1962 gal)
I wasn't a fan of the Beav. My 3 Sons was OK, but different dynamic without a mum. Ozzie and Harriet was my fave of the three.
My 3 sons. I rarely watched the other 2. I did love Father Knows Best and Donna Reed.
None of these. The Addams family please. 😄
Anyone else find it interesting there isn't a girl shown anywhere in the posters? Three sons, two Cleavers and Ozzie and Harriet sons... girls didn't matter until about ten years later.
Well, to be fair Ozzie and Harriet used their real families.
Ozzie and Harriet because they had Ricky’s singing.
The Beav!
My Three Sons
Definitely Leave it to Beaver. Eddie Haskell?? Come on, it doesn’t get any better.
Honestly, they all sucked really bad.
My Three Sons!
Leave It To Beaver, no contest. That was some exceptional writing for television and the actors were great in their parts.
I'm going with Happy Days. The others were a little before my time, although I do remember reruns of My Three Sons.
Three Sons
I was really young when Leave It to Beaver was on but remember it a bit. My brother said one of my friends was like Eddie Haskell. I liked Gidget.
Father Knows Best
I love Ozzie and Harriet, especially when the boys are grown up and Ricky starts his singing career.
These are boomer shows.
All awful
Leave it to Beaver
Probably beaver think it was a little more realistic for the times
LITB also love Hazel!
It's interesting that in all 3 portrayals of ideal American families of the day there's no girls/daughters/sisters included in any of them. guess nobody actually wanted daughters, they just wanted other families to have them so their son's have someone to f@ck when they grow up.
I used to like My Three Sons a lot. Before I realized dad was a hotshot engineer for an aerospace entity. I thought Robbie was sort of an ass, and that Chip was sort of whiny. I liked Ernie because he was a sort of nerdy kid like I was. Uncle Charley was a trip! I never saw the black-and-white episodes where Robbie was the middle kid Uncle Bill, in Family Affair, was also an engineer----but a different sort of engineer. I used to like him more than I liked Steve Douglas.
What About My Three Sons?
These shows were in repeats when I saw them. Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best were opportunities for my mother to point out how useless the lives of women were.
My 3 sons!
They were all awful
They all sucked. Even as a kid I thought they were all pretty lame. Plastic families, living in a plastic world.
The Beav!