skyvue
Call Me a Cab
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- 2,221
- Location
- New York City
I grew up watching Leave It to Beaver reruns every afternoon after school (I was around but too young to have watched --or remembered, at least -- it when it first aired).
After years of not watching the show, I've been watching it again on Antenna TV (which I didn't even know we got in NYC), and I occasionally find myself intrigued when Ward reminisces about his youth. Not the "Why, in my day, we had it rough; my father would never have put up with blah blah blah" that he often indulges in, but the very specific cultural references.
For instance, in one episode, June asks Ward if he ever fought with his pals over a girl, and Ward responds, "No, we were too busy playing miniature golf."
I wouldn't have understood that line at all when I was a kid. I mean, I knew what miniature golf was, of course, but I didn't know then that miniature golf was a huge national craze in the 1920s. I always thought of it as a 1950s thing, but there were many more courses in the 1920s and '30s than there were in the 1950s and '60s. Nice touch there by the LItB writers.
And in an episode I watched yesterday, Wally was suddenly sporting a crazy hairdo (the Jelly Roll), and June was aghast, feeling strongly that she and Ward should insist that Wally return to his usual, more conservative cut.
Ward, though, understood that Wally just trying to fit in with the other kids who had similarly kooky 'dos, that it was just a matter of personal expression for eldest son. Ward insisted that Wally would lose interest in that look in short order if they just didn't make a fuss.
And Ward revealed to June that in his youth, the fad for young men was dirty corduroys -- the dirtier, the better, he said -- and crisp white shirts.
I'd never heard of that fad, but a little Googling reveals that Ward (or, rather, the show's writers) weren't making that detail up. Dirty cords were indeed a fad in the early '30s.
Anyone else remember such a reminiscence from Ward or another 1950s or '60s sitcom parent?
After years of not watching the show, I've been watching it again on Antenna TV (which I didn't even know we got in NYC), and I occasionally find myself intrigued when Ward reminisces about his youth. Not the "Why, in my day, we had it rough; my father would never have put up with blah blah blah" that he often indulges in, but the very specific cultural references.
For instance, in one episode, June asks Ward if he ever fought with his pals over a girl, and Ward responds, "No, we were too busy playing miniature golf."
I wouldn't have understood that line at all when I was a kid. I mean, I knew what miniature golf was, of course, but I didn't know then that miniature golf was a huge national craze in the 1920s. I always thought of it as a 1950s thing, but there were many more courses in the 1920s and '30s than there were in the 1950s and '60s. Nice touch there by the LItB writers.
And in an episode I watched yesterday, Wally was suddenly sporting a crazy hairdo (the Jelly Roll), and June was aghast, feeling strongly that she and Ward should insist that Wally return to his usual, more conservative cut.
Ward, though, understood that Wally just trying to fit in with the other kids who had similarly kooky 'dos, that it was just a matter of personal expression for eldest son. Ward insisted that Wally would lose interest in that look in short order if they just didn't make a fuss.
And Ward revealed to June that in his youth, the fad for young men was dirty corduroys -- the dirtier, the better, he said -- and crisp white shirts.
I'd never heard of that fad, but a little Googling reveals that Ward (or, rather, the show's writers) weren't making that detail up. Dirty cords were indeed a fad in the early '30s.
Anyone else remember such a reminiscence from Ward or another 1950s or '60s sitcom parent?
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