They definitely didn't like me coming in so they would yell at me, razz me, cut me off and unfortunately I gave up surfing which is too bad because surfing is a great sport. People who surf a particular area all the time become a group and they don't like newcomers coming in. Surfing in general is kind of a territorial thing.
I had a surfboard that was tailor made for me.
I had gone to Hawaii and learned how to surf when I was around ten or eleven years old. They weren't treating me like other kids and that wasn't good for one's psychological development. Sometimes they'd be razzin' me and other times they'd be overly nice. I had friends but sure their attitudes changed as I got known on the show. My parents loved Catalina so we spent the summers over there. Tony Dow: The show was produced 42 weeks of the year so we got a couple months off usually in the middle of the summer so we got to do what other kids got to do in the summer like go to camp or go on vacation. Since you were working so hard and producing 39 episodes a year, do you feel you missed out on your teenage years at all? You spent your entire adolescence on the show. Lee Sobel: When the show ended you were eighteen. But actually when I was 14 I started listening to jazz and got really into it and that became my thing. Tony Dow: Yeah I was a fan of Elvis and like all the kids I listened to the radio every night. Were you a fan of the music? Did you ever meet Elvis or any other famous rock 'n roll stars? Lee Sobel: When you were a teenager, rock 'n roll exploded across the country. I think that was very smart because instead of thinking we were funny or great or whatever, we just thought of ourselves as two kids that went to work. To this day there are plenty of episodes I've never even seen. So the producers didn't want us to watch the shows and I didn't see any of the episodes until I was much older.
Most people would want to gather everyone they knew when their kid was on TV and then everyone could say how great that kid was. To avoid that kind of thing the producers asked our parents not to let us watch the show. That was never an issue with Jerry and myself. That's the only ego I ever saw on the show. He's also worked numerous "real" job like in construction and now he is a respected sculptor.ĭisappeared from the show. He had very little acting training and had only made one TV pilot before becoming famous as Wally Cleaver. His mother had been an extra in movies and ended up doing stunt work, doubling for Clara Bow aka "The It Girl." Prior to being cast as Wally on Leave It to Beaver, Tony was trained as a swimmer and driver, had won awards through the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) and was a Junior Olympics diving champion who has aspirations of someday competing in the Olympics. Barbara "June Cleaver" Billingsley passed away in 2010, Frank "Lumpy Rutherford" died in 2013 and Ken "Eddie Haskell" Osmond just passed away this year on May 18, 2020.
Like the original series it also changed networked - from The Disney Channel) to TBS (total 101 episodes). Based on the success of that telefilm, a new cable TV series ran for five years from 1984-89, The New Leave It to Beaver.
The cast minus Hugh Beaumont, who passed away in 1980, came back together to make a TV movie in 1983, Still The Beaver. After six seasons, the show was still going strong and it wasn't canceled for a dip in the ratings but because Jerry Mathers wanted to The first season aired on CBS but after one season, the network canceled it and starting with the second through sixth season Leave It to Beaver aired on the ABC network. The original pilot had another actor playing the brother of Jerry Mathers aka "The Beaver." A shot of a toilet tank got past the censors so the show was the first TV show to show one. The show presented a wholesome American family that one either made fun of for being so square or secretly felt jealous of because their own parents had gotten divorced (like mine) or both. I wasn't born yet when Leave It to Beaver premiered on network television in 1957 but I certainly watched the show in reruns and enjoyed the hijinks of Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver and his older brother Wally (and of course their ingratiating friend Eddie Haskell). I didn't grow up in the 50's so I guess that's why my dad didn't sit at home in a suit and tie and mom didn't walk around wearing pearls and heels.