Boyhood crushes

#2: Wally and The Beaver

Jerry Mathers and Tony Dow, Leave it to Beaver, 1957-1963.

I was about Beaver's age, in fact, some kids at school said I looked like him. I was embarrassed to watch the show - I had squirmy feelings about my reaction to looking at cute boys.

I didn't know which one to look at - Wally was so much better looking, but impossibly old. And Wally, what a dorky name, even in the 1960's.

The show revealed that the nickname "Beaver" came from baby Wally's inability to pronounce his brother's name "Theodore." I thought only my family was weird like that: One of my grandmothers was re-christened "Munner" (corrupting "mother") by an idiot cousin, and the name stuck so much that even my parents called her that.

The program gave rise to a couple of urban legends. One has it that Jerry Mathers died in Viet Nam, and another that Leave it to Beaver was the first TV show to show a toilet. The first is false, the second is an "almost." See here if you want to look it up.

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... As the Beaver. I got over him pretty quick.


(Related: Boyhood crushes #1.)