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Leave it to Beaver pilot to air

S

stevezodiac

October 4th is the 50th Anniversary for LITB. Even though I'm not really crazy for TVLand, they will be showing a LITB marathon on Saturday. It will include the pilot episode "It's a Small World", which had different actors playing "Ward" and "Wally". They will also show the very last episode "Family Scrapbook". I don't remember seeing either of these, but they are set to record. ;)
 
TBS ran the original "It's A Small World" pilot
about 20 years ago, when it was showing "The
New Leave It To Beaver." For those who may
not be familiar with it, Jerry Mathers and Barbara
Billingsley are in it, but Ward is played by Max
Showalter (aka Casey Adams) and Wally by Paul
Sullivan. There's also a character, Frankie, played
by Harry Shearer, who appears to be a prototype of
Eddie Haskell.

The pilot originally aired on a syndicated anthology
series, "Studio 57," sponsored by Heinz 57.

"Family Scrapbook," from 1963, contains a lot of
footage from the show's early years. IIRC, Hugh
Beaumont directed the episode.
 
THE Harry Shearer?
[/quote]

Yep, THAT Harry Shearer.
 
I saw part of the pilot -- wow, that was weird. You feel like you've stepped into some parallel universe where everything is almost, but not quite the same. ???

Kind of like the "All in the Family" pilot, which TV Land showed a few years ago. The same identical script that was ultimately used for the first episode, but with different (and not terribly good) actors portraying Mike, Gloria, and Lionel. (And Archie's last name as "Justice" instead of Bunker -- I guess that was too obvious an ironic reference to use...)
 
I have that lost pilot on DVR. Haven't watched the whole thing yet, though. In zipping through it, I notice Richard Deacon, who played Lumpy's dad in many episodes, appears in the pilot ep. but not as Ward's office co-worker.

I have seen the Family Scrapbook ep. It's mostly a look back at previous episodes with some fresh material.

Overall, the Beave was a very good series.

I sure wish they had done a spinoff with Beaver in HS, Wally, Lumpy and Eddy going to college.
 
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