Leave It to Beaver (season 3)

: "See main article: List of Leave It to Beaver episodes"

infobox tvseason
season_name=Leave It to Beaver (season 3)


caption=Title screen
dvd_release_date=
country=USA
network=ABC
first_aired=October 3,1959
last_aired=June 25,1960
num_episodes=39 (black-and-white, full-screen, approx. 25 minutes)
next_season=Leave It to Beaver (season 4)|

"Leave It to Beaver" (season 3) provides background information regarding the third season and summaries, cast, and crews for episodes within the season. Other seasons may have individual articles. Refer to main article.

Season 3: 1959-1960

Production

The third season of "Leave It to Beaver" debuted on ABC October 3 1959, with "Blind Date Committee" and concluded its run June 25 1960, with "Beaver's Team". The show moved from its Wednesday time-slot to Saturday at 8:30 P.M., where it remained until September 1962, when it moved yet again for the final season. Like the first two seasons, the third consists of 39 black-and-white, full-screen, half-hour episodes (with ads) recorded on 35mm film.

Opening and closing sequences

The opening sequence shows Ward and June entering the boys' bedroom to wake them for a new day. Ward wakes Wally, while June wakes Beaver. The camera zooms in for a close-up of Beaver as he rubs the sleep from his eyes and smiles at Ward. Like the second season, the closing sequence shows Beaver and Wally walking down the street. The boys are seen in the distance approaching the viewer. Beaver walks along the curbstone carrying a baseball glove (rather than schoolbooks) until a passing vehicle forces him onto the sidewalk. The boys walk along, approach the house and go to the door. The third season closing sequence features the new house and is used for both the fourth and fifth seasons.

Casting

Like the previous two seasons, all four main players appear in every episode.

Richard Correll joins the show and remains for the duration as Beaver's classmate and friend, Richard Rickover. Karen Sue Trent joins the cast as Penny Woods. Penny would replace Judy Hensler as Beaver's classroom nemesis in the following season when Jeri Weil leaves the show.

Actors "Tiger" Fafara (Tooey Brown), Buddy Hart (Chester Anderson), and Bobby Mittelstaedt (Charles Fredericks) leave the show. Ken Osmond as Eddie Haskell and Frank Bank as Lumpy Rutherford become Wally's best friends and constant companions for the remainder of the series.

Direction and writing

Norman Tokar directs the majority of episodes. Hugh Beaumont directs his first episode, "Wally and Alma" and would ultimately direct twenty-three episodes for the show. Several directors new to the series (including Norman Abbott) participate.

"Leave It to Beaver" universe

When the second season closes, the Cleavers have sold their house on Mapleton Drive. In the first episode of the third season, the Cleavers are settled in a new house at 211 Pine Street. No episode features the actual move. The family remains in the Pine Street house for the remainder of the series; the boys attend the same schools and visit the same friends. Beaver enters the fourth grade, and Wally the tenth.

The Pine Street house has a layout similar to the Mapleton Drive house: front entry, living room with fireplace, dining room, picnic patio, kitchen, garage, and three or four bedrooms on the upper level. In the Pine Street house, however, Ward has a panelled, bookcase-lined den (the location of many scenes in which Ward disciplines the boys), and June has a laundry room off the kitchen (where Beaver creates chaos in a future episode). Like the Mapleton Drive house, the boys' bedroom has an en-suite bathroom. Unlike the previous two seasons, the Pine Street garage is used infrequently as a setting for the masculine confabs of Beaver and his friends or for father and son get-togethers.

The adult theme of alcoholism is tackled in "Beaver and Andy".

Episodes

References

* Applebaum, Irwyn. "The World According to Beaver". TV Books, 1998. ISBN 1575000520.
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050032/episodes#season-3 IMDb: "Leave It to Beaver". Season 3.]
* Mathers, Jerry."...And Jerry Mathers as "The Beaver". Berkley Boulevard Books, 1998. ISBN 0425163709.