Leave it to Beaver: An appreciation

Jaime J. Weinman on the occasion of the DVD release of Beaver, season 1.

It was, and still is, one of the best shows ever made about children, and one of the few works of popular culture at the time that actually presented kids who acted like real kids, instead of cartoonish Little-Rascals style moppets. The fact that it's comedy about children, from the children's point of view, also makes it essentially unimportant that the parents are idealized versions of real parents: when you're a kid, your parents often seem a lot like Ward and June -- all-knowing, all-wise -- and so Ward and June are true to the child's perspective.