Happened to catch this one today-first time in many years. We open with Beaver wearing a suit and tie, while eating breakfast with his family. I immediately thought it foolish to take a chance on donning such nice clothes before he is done eating. It can't be the Beav is so neat he never spills anything on his shirt.
Ward is handing him a letter excusing him from an hour or so of school that day to appear on a local show spelled "Teen Age Forum" which we learn airs once a week, on Thursday mornings at 11. As another reviewer here has pointed out, it should have been "Teenage" as one word. Oh well, a century or so ago, our national pastime was spelled "base ball."
It was curious that Ward said that along with his note AND a letter from the TV station telling him he will be on this program, Mrs. Rayburn should excuse him from school. Later, at school, Beaver seems happy that she approved his excuse as though there was doubt. I'm pretty sure back in the day a note from a parent got you excused automatically. I do remember my parents taking my sister and me out one Friday to go up north for the weekend. I am positive their note stated the truth. As long as the parent(s) approved it, your absence was excused, nobody at the school had to think over if the reason was good enough.
So Beaver walks to the TV studio and just before they go on the air, he steps out for a drink of water and misses the key news that the program will air in one week-it was not shown live.
So we see Beaver's class all sitting there to watch him on the TV Mrs. Rayburn had brought into the room, along with Ward and Fred Rutherford watching on a TV in Ward's office (one that looked exactly like the one in Beaver's class-hmmmm?) and even Wally got excused to go home to see his brother on TV with June. I noticed that the easy chair in the background was facing away from the TV in one scene, but turned around toward the TV when they were watching. Did the Cleavers watch so little television that they actually spun around this heavy, padded easy chair every time they watched a show, and then turned it back when they turned the set off?
Everyone is surprised to see that the show has no sign of the Beaver. The best lines come from Fred, who always says almost-complimentary things about Wally and the Beaver, but includes some little dig to show how much better his Lumpy is than they are. What I thought was really odd-for this half-hour show, they bring in four teenagers to discuss a given topic, but even after seeing no Beaver, everyone involved watches the entire show, as if they expect that after 15 minutes, or more, these four kids will be excused and four others will be brought out, possibly including the Beaver. Surely, if he's not on it, it's time to get back to work. Anyone, even in the early 60s would figure there must have been some sort of problem and they must be airing an old episode instead of the live show.
Only Ward is smart enough to call the TV station and learn that they record the show one week in advance of its airing. When Beaver returns to school, his friends are all nasty to him for lying, informing him that the show they saw didn't have him at all. We ALL knew then that most TV shows were filmed long before they were put on the air. Even if there was no mention of that in the opening or closing on the presentation, you'd think they would figure that the show doesn't air live.
Beaver does his little-kid panic on hearing that he wasn't on, and instead of returning to class, ducks out and goes to sit in a park, wondering what happened. I think he was getting too old for that sort of stupidness. At this point, he knew he hadn't done anything wrong, he knew he was expected back in class the rest of the day, but instead he skips the whole afternoon because he figures Mrs. Rayburn will be mad at him for lying. He does this even though he knows that to get his excuse note from his father approved that morning, he also presented a letter from the TV station telling him he's going to be on the show. And at no point does the teenage Beaver think that he'll be in even more trouble for skipping school for half a day after he was done with the TV show.
He finally gets the idea of calling the TV station to find out what happened, but he doesn't ask to speak to someone connected with the show, merely asks the receptionist if he was on the program that day. The lady says he will be on next week-obviously looking at a list of when the show will air. Beaver instead of asking another obvious question, or saying something like, "But I was at the studio today and was on the show," just hangs up without learning what he needed to know. Later, he tells Gilbert about how he himself doubts he was on the show. They figure it's a real life Twilight Zone where he did something, but he didn't.
Much later, he returns home where his dad tells him about the show being recorded. We finish by seeing everyone in the three locations viewing, just like a week before. I didn't check but wouldn't be surprised if everyone was wearing the same clothes they did last Thursday. As soon as Wally sees his brother on TV he says, "Why that creep is wearing my good tie!" I guess when he sat next to him at the breakfast table a week before, he never noticed the tie Beaver was wearing a week ago. Even though his tie has been returned, in good condition, he still is upset-but I don't see why.
Two other things were wrong: He was allowed to say hello to his principal and some friends at his school, by name, something you were not legally allowed for decades to do on a TV show. And the big thing that makes absolutely no sense at all, then or now, is why in the world would any television station or network design a program totally featuring teenagers discussing any topic...and put it on the air at 11 o'clock in the morning on a day when the kids would normally be in school, unable to watch at all? Even if they had VCRs, it would have made no sense, but of course, nobody at the time had a way of recording shows.
I think the script troubles with reality keep this from a high score. For the lines from Fred, I will give this one a 5.
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