Leave It to Beaver is an American television situation comedy about Theodore "The Beaver" Cleaver, an inquisitive and often naive little boy, and his experiences at home, in school, and in his suburban neighborhood. Beaver's parents, June and Ward Cleaver, were played by Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont, and Beaver's brother Wally was played by Tony Dow. The Cleavers have become famous in the United States, exemplifying the idealized suburban family of the mid-twentieth century. Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, the show's creators, wrote the script. Characters, themes, and dialogue for the show were inspired by the lives, experiences, and discussions of these veterans of radio and early television. One of the first primetime sitcom series written from the perspective of a child was Leave It to Beaver. Leave It to Beaver, like several other late 1950s and early 1960s television dramas and sitcoms, depicts middle-class white American boyhood. Beaver got himself into trouble in an usual occurrence, and then had to face his parents for rebuke and correction. However, neither parent was omniscient; in fact, the sitcom frequently featured the parents disputing their child-rearing strategies, and other episodes were centered on parental blunders.
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