User Reviews

Unusual episode from LITB's final season in which Beaver appears on a teenage panel show on television. Admittedly, the plot is a bit of a tempest in a teapot (why doesn't it occur to anyone that the panel show was taped?) But the episode is still fun for its contemporary pop culture references and especially the quasi-parody of THE TWILIGHT ZONE embedded in the middle. The parody is very clever and even manages to mimic the music and cinematography of the ZONE.

The IMDb trivia page states that "Beaver on TV" may have more topical allusions than any other episode of the series. (Among them: MEET THE PRESS, ROUTE 66, Bennett Cerf, Jack Paar, and Jackie Kennedy.) It's as if the writers deliberately set out to make a self-referential episode about television. We even get to see the inside workings of the TV studio where the panel show is filmed. But beyond this, "Beaver on TV" manages to work in a serious theme: encountering disbelief when one speaks the truth. (This was, of course, a common theme on Rod Serling's show.) Beaver's classmates are snarky and mean to him when they think he lied about being on television, and one would have liked for them to be given some sort of comeuppance. But be that as it may, "Beaver on TV" is a lot of fun and definitely worth seeing.

Beaver is getting a chance to be on a TV panel and there is some excitement in the Cleaver household. Beaver is ready to go, he's wearing his suit and has letters to his teachers excuse him from school. Even Mrs. Rayburn is pleased that Beaver will be representing the school.

A TV is brought into the classroom so the classmates will be able to watch; at work Ward is hoping to see Beaver on TV, at home Wally and June are preparing to watch. At the station, the panel has been assembled and are ready to go. Unfortunately, Beaver goes out for a glass of water and misses the announcement that the show is being taped for broadcast a week from now. This enables the kids to see themselves on the program. Too bad this show was broadcast long before every family had a VCR in their home to capture such moments.

Everyone at home and school watching is confused, no Beaver. The only one pleased is Fred Rutherford. He is happy to gloat over possible reasons that could explain why Beaver was dumped.

At the station, everyone is pleased at how it went, but Beaver still doesn't know about the delayed broadcast. So, when Beaver arrives at school no one believes he was on TV. His friends turn on him like the French guillotining aristocrats. Beaver is so embarrassed, he didn't return to his upcoming classes. June is concerned because Beaver hasn't returned home. Gilbert has Beaver believing he is crazy. Finally, Beaver returns home to get the explanation. After the day he has had, Beaver has had it with television at any level. Our sophistication with TV was still lacking in the early 60's.

Then a week later there is Beaver on TV. He has his five minutes of fame and everyone sees his shout out to Mrs. Rayburn and his friends. Beaver is back to being one of the good guys.

Years ago, I knew the team that was working on using satellites to transmit phone calls. The phenomena that initially caused some in trouble was what we now know as signal delay: that five second delay that occurs during conversation. We all see it as normal when a TV anchor asks a correspondent who is half a world away a question, and we have "dead air" until they hear the question and respond. That delay in responding to a question, in our culture, generally indicates a person is desperately seeking an answer. We then interpret that delay as meaning they are not prepared or are about to lie. For example, wives calling husbands who were away on business trips would ask what they did that night. That "delay in responding" was interpreted as the husbands were up to something. Engineers quickly realized they had to get out the explanation for the delay. They did and today we have come to accept that delay as normal.

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.