User Reviews

It was inevitable that with the onrush of adolescence Beaver would eventually develop an interest - however tentative at first - in the opposite sex. In this episode, Beaver has a crush on a new girl in class, Mary Tyler. He asks to walk her home, she accepts, and the two make a detour to the Cleaver home where they play Monopoly and make a puppy love pact. But not ten minutes are up before Mary has broken the pact and developed a quite lively infatuation with Beaver's older brother Wally - flagrantly displayed right in front of Beaver! Wally tries his best to shake her off, but she proves to be a love-struck bug. Beaver becomes extremely jealous, and the whole thing develops (at least in Beaver's fevered mind) into a case of...brother vs. brother!

Some subtle details are worth mentioning. When Beaver and Mary shake hands over their "pact," their handshake is shown over the game board emblazoned with the word MONOPOLY, underlining the pushy and manipulative Mary's desire to have exclusive rights on whatever boy she sets her sights on. After Mary has developed her crush on Wally, we see Beaver descend into a deep melancholy, torn as he is between his male buddies and his love/hate relationship with Mary. June tries to console him, and we get one of the rare mother/son scenes between the two of them up in Beaver's room. There's also some amusing and playful banter between June and Ward concerning HIS first crushes.

At the end Mary sees the foolishness of her ways and seeks to return to Beaver, but in a funny classroom scene Beaver makes it clear that he'll have none of her! We are left with some wistful philosophizing by the two brothers about the fickleness of girls.

Episodes exploring Beaver's nascent interest in girls became frequent in the last two seasons. The others, for those who like to keep score, are "Beaver's First Date," "Farewell to Penny," "More Blessed to Give," "Double Date," "Don Juan Beaver," and "Beaver Sees America." In "Beaver's Autobiography," by contrast, it's the girl who has a crush on an utterly indifferent Beaver.

This was a welcomed good episode of leave it to Beaver after a few duds. The previous episode was also pretty good too about the Merchant Marines.

A new female classmate comes to his school and Beaver and the girl like each other and start staring and smiling at each other in class. But then the girl meets Wally and forgets all about Beaver. Of course Beaver gets mad at Wally when Wally has not done a thing to lead the girl on. A cute episode about the fickleness of some girls and even some adult women. The grass is sometimes greener on the other side my Mom always said and I have seen that too many times myself.

The new student in Mr. Collins class at Grant Avenue Grammar turns out not to be a great baseball player but a girl, Mary Tyler, with a killer smile—for Beaver anyway. And it's so good a smile that Beaver turns to Wally for advice on what to do. Try walking her home and talk, just like Huntley and Brinkley.

Second day and Beaver is putting on the "boy" with after shave and all. Noticeable enough to Ward and June that they make Beaver go upstairs and wash it off. Now it's dumping Richard and Gilbert after school so Beaver can walk Mary home; instead of trying to teach a rat to roll over. Beaver even walks Mary to his house to play Monopoly. Mary promises if Beaver promises to walk her home every day, she won't let any other boy walk her home. Things look good, until Wally walks in and Mary switches walkers—Beaver for Wally. And all this happens in a New York Minute. Beaver has been ditched. Love is fickle after all. And Wally does have such big muscles.

That night it's a cold dinner table as Beaver is snubbing Wally. June decides as it's a matter of the heart, she can intervene. Wrong call. Next day Ricard and Gilbert are giving Beaver the business about liking a girl. All they do is cause trouble. While Beaver is waiting for Mary, Mary is lying in wait for Wally. And she catches him, but he gives it to her straight. She's a dopey little girl and he's a junior in high school. Wally Cleaver is so mean it's over, Mary will never talk to Wally again. So back to Beaver, but Beaver does not take rebounds. Mary slips Beaver a note stating she is willing to let Beaver walk her home; return note to Mary clearly reads, Drop Dead. Beaver has decided he's not going to mess around with girls anymore; they're too hard to figure out. Wally agrees. Look at him, he's all grown up and even he can't figure girls out.

Mimi Gibson as Mary Tyler. Mimi was an incredibly cute little girl. This resonated more because the show, in general, didn't have particularly "good looking" kids. It was nice that Beaver took an instant liking to her, and that she wanted him to "walk her home." Everything is going just fine, until the story takes a wrong turn. We reach the point where Mary wants Beaver to walk home "only with her." Then, Wally walks into the room, and Mary forgets all about Beaver. Wally was an arguably "good looking" guy, as well as a nice guy. This would explain why a girl his own age would flip over him. Why a girl as young as Beaver would develop an instant "crush" on Wally is not entirely clear. In any case, we have Mary now interested in Wally, and Beaver blaming his brother for this. Not a very desirable direction for the story to take. It would have been more interesting if one of Beaver's friends also developed a crush on Mary. Why his friends didn't seem to like Mary, but only mocked Beaver for liking her, also didn't make much sense. None of Beaver's friends wore glasses. Maybe, they all needed to have their eyes examined!