Best TV Dads · Episode 1
Ward Cleaver
Leave It to Beaver (1957–63). The original TV dad: a calm voice, an open door, and a talk in the den whenever the Beaver needed one. Plus Hugh Beaumont, and why Ward is the gold standard.
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Shannon A study in a quiet house in the suburbs. A man in a cardigan sits in his armchair with the evening paper. There's a knock at the door, and a small boy comes in, looking at his shoes.
Gordon Because he's done something. And he knows his father's going to find out.
Shannon But his father doesn't shout. He puts down the paper, and he says, sit down, son. Let's talk about it.
Gordon I watched that scene for the first time last week. And honestly, I didn't expect a show from the fifties to get to me like that.
Shannon Welcome to Best TV Dads. Each episode, we sit down with one of television's great fathers. Some of them I first met in reruns, years after they went off the air.
Gordon And some of them, I'm meeting for the very first time. It's like finding a box of treasures in the attic.
Shannon And there's only one place to start. The father who taught a whole generation what a TV dad should be.
Gordon Episode one. Ward Cleaver.
Gordon Okay. So I came to this completely fresh. Set the scene for me.
Shannon The show is Leave It to Beaver. It started in October of 1957, and it ran for six seasons, until 1963. That's a little before my time, too. I found it the way a lot of people did, in reruns, after school.
Gordon So you were a kid watching kids.
Shannon Exactly. The Cleavers live in a pleasant little town called Mayfield. There's Ward, his wife June, and their two boys. Wally, the older one, and Theodore, who everyone calls the Beaver.
Gordon And here's what surprised me. It's the kids' show, really, isn't it? It's told from their side.
Shannon That's what made it different. Most family sitcoms were about the grown-ups, with the kids getting a laugh now and then. Leave It to Beaver was about being a kid. Getting into trouble, keeping secrets, and then having to face your dad.
Gordon And where did that come from?
Shannon From real life. The show was created by two writers, Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, who had children of their own. A lot of the stories came straight from things their kids had done.
Gordon So, who was Ward Cleaver?
Shannon An ordinary dad. He goes to work in an office, he comes home in time for dinner, and he reads the paper in his den. We're never really told what his job is.
Gordon That's the joke, isn't it? Nobody knows what Ward does.
Shannon Fans have been guessing for years. But it doesn't matter. What matters is what he does when he comes home.
Gordon Which is?
Shannon He listens. When Beaver gets into a mess, Ward doesn't fly off the handle. He asks what happened. He lets the boy explain. And then he helps him see what he should have done, and what he needs to do now to make it right.
Gordon And there's always a lesson.
Shannon Nearly every time. But it never feels like a sermon. Ward has a dry sense of humor, and he remembers being a boy himself. He likes to say his own father was a lot tougher on him than he is on his sons.
Gordon And we can't talk about Ward without June.
Shannon No, we can't. June Cleaver, played by Barbara Billingsley. Pearls, a pretty dress, and always a plate of something warm.
Gordon And the famous line.
Shannon The famous line. June comes to Ward and says, Ward, I'm worried about the Beaver. And Ward, calm as ever, goes to find out.
Gordon They were a team.
Shannon They were. June notices things, and Ward handles them. And neither of them ever undercuts the other in front of the boys. That's a quiet lesson in itself.
Gordon So, who played Ward?
Shannon A man named Hugh Beaumont. He'd been a working actor in Hollywood for years. In the forties, he played a private detective in a string of B movies.
Gordon A tough guy?
Shannon Of sorts. But there was another side to him. He'd studied theology, and he was a lay minister in the Methodist church. He was a thoughtful, serious man, and you can feel that in Ward.
Gordon That explains the den talks.
Shannon I think it does. He also directed some episodes of the show himself. And the boy who played the Beaver later called him a friend and mentor.
Gordon The boys.
Shannon Tony Dow, who played Wally, and Jerry Mathers, who played the Beaver. Jerry Mathers was only nine when the show began. He grew up on that set, with Hugh Beaumont as his TV dad.
Gordon And then there's Eddie.
Shannon Eddie Haskell, Wally's friend, played by Ken Osmond. Polite as can be to Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver, and the moment they turn around, he's a little troublemaker.
Gordon Good morning, Mrs. Cleaver. That's a lovely dress.
Shannon That's the one. And Ward sees straight through him every time. He never says much. He just gives that look.
Gordon So why does Ward Cleaver belong at the top of a list like this?
Shannon Because he's the gold standard. Early TV had its share of bumbling dads, the kind who couldn't fix the sink. Ward was different. He was wise, and patient, and he took his boys seriously.
Gordon Even when they were being silly.
Shannon Especially then. To Ward, a boy who's lied about a bad grade, or lost his new sweater, has a real problem. And it deserves a real conversation.
Gordon That's what every kid wants, isn't it? To be taken seriously.
Shannon It is. And every TV dad after him, whether they knew it or not, was measured against Ward Cleaver.
Gordon So, what's your pick?
Shannon Mine is In the Soup. Beaver's friend Whitey dares him to climb up a soup billboard to see how the steam works, and he falls right into the giant bowl and can't get out. A crowd gathers, Ward and Wally show up, and the fire department has to get him down.
Gordon And Ward?
Shannon Ward is worried sick, and afterwards, very gently, he talks to Beaver about taking dares. It's funny and sweet at the same time.
Gordon And mine is The Haircut. Beaver loses his haircut money, and he decides to cut his own hair, with a little help from Wally. It doesn't go well. And Ward and June have to decide how to handle it.
Shannon And this is a new show, so we need a rating. We're going to rate our dads out of five neckties. The classic Father's Day present.
Gordon Oh, I like that.
Shannon So, how many for Ward?
Gordon Five neckties. Every one of them neatly knotted.
Shannon Five from me too. He's the gold standard.
Gordon That's Ward Cleaver. A calm voice, an open door, and a talk in the den whenever you needed one.
Shannon Next time, we head out to the prairie. A father with a fiddle, a little house, and a whole lot of heart. Charles Ingalls.
Gordon That's next time, on Best TV Dads.