When Beaver mopes around his father, Ward only makes things worse, telling Beaver to suck it up and take it like a man without bothering to find out what's wrong. Maybe that's why I watch Everybody Loves Raymond.) When I was Beaver's age, I had a screaming match with my mother every time she ordered me to get an embarrassingly short haircut. Beaver and brother Wally realize how disastrous this is, anticipating the teasing that will result, but Beaver is afraid to hurt his mother's feelings.
His mother picks a personal favorite, with Beaver in a classic pose: buck-naked on a bear-skin rug (on his stomach, of course). That's never more true than in "Baby Picture," in which 9-year-old Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver is tasked with bringing a baby picture of himself to school for a class project. Beaver's distinction is that it's from the point of view of the kid characters, giving them more screen time than the parents - which has the effect of making Ward and June seem, if not clueless, somewhat out of the loop. Leave It to Beaver was never a big hit in prime time, lagging behind shows like Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, and The Real McCoys in the ratings, but it's now better known than any of its sitcom contemporaries. In fact, the next episode on the list features one of the most misanthropic characters on television, so let's pause to recognize the family sitcom that has had the sweetest afterlife. Stand by for Family Affair! (Seriously, though, don't click this. A list of the programs revealed so far is here and an introduction to the project is here.īecause of the flak I've been getting from certain individuals about including Everybody Loves Raymond on this list, I've changed the rest of the entries so they're all about nice people in tasteful homes whose favorite activity is forgiving each other. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No.
Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for winter 2012. " Baby Picture," Leave It to Beaver (1959)