One of the series that defined the sitcom format was "Leave It to Beaver"--I grew up with that show and I'm sure at least some of you did as well or caught up with it in its endless reruns.
Now there's a new box set out of the entire run: all 234 episodes from the six years it was on the air (they produced more episodes per season in those days). Neil Genzlinger writes about the series in the New York Times:
"...television comedy was a much slower animal back then. You have to detox mentally to watch these shows, to lay aside your caffeine and BlackBerry addictions and be prepared to wait for your rewards."
He quotes Tony Dow, the actor who played the Beaver's older brother: “Jokes get in the way,” Tony Dow, who played Wally, said in a telephone interview, talking about the “Beaver” writers’ reliance on more placid, observational humor. “They get in the way of your concentration when you’re trying to get at a story. We would throw jokes out at the table reading.”
It's tempting to say those were gentler times but I think it was just gentler television. As the article points out, the problems that the Beaver and his friends encountered have been taken on again by every family sitcom since and will continue to pop up. Now often they're surrounded by one-liners and the Moms don't wear pearl necklaces around the house and the Dads don't wear a coat and tie while reading the Sunday papers.
I don't know whether I'll get that box set. Maybe I've been spoiled by the pace of my more recent favorites like "Arrested Development" and "30 Rock."
Yes, I think I'll leave Wally and the Beaver where they belong--somewhere in middle-America, circa 1960.
They might not like it here.
(Want to write sitcoms? See my book, "Successful Sitcom Writing," published by St. Martin's Press and available from Amazon and other retailers)
