Country of origin United States | Original network ABC | |
No. of episodes 39 (black-and-white, full-screen, approx. 25 minutes) Original release October 3, 1959 – June 25, 1960 | ||
The third season of the American television situation comedy Leave It to Beaver premiered on October 3, 1959 and concluded on June 25, 1960. It consisted of 39 episodes shot in black-and-white, each running approximately 25 minutes in length.
Contents
Production
The third season of Leave It to Beaver debuted on ABC October 3, 1959, with "Blind Date Committee" and concluded its run June 25, 1960, with "Beaver's Team". The show moved from its Thursday time-slot to Saturday at 8:30 P.M., where it remained until September 1962, when it moved yet again for the final season. Like the first two seasons, the third consists of 39 black-and-white, full-screen, half-hour episodes (with ads) recorded on 35mm film.
Opening and closing sequences
The opening sequence shows Ward and June entering the boys' bedroom to wake them for a new day. Ward wakes Wally, while June wakes Beaver. The camera zooms in for a close-up of Beaver as he rubs the sleep from his eyes and smiles at Ward. Like the second season, the closing sequence shows Beaver and Wally walking down the street. The boys are seen in the distance approaching the viewer. Beaver walks along the curbstone carrying a baseball glove rather than schoolbooks until a passing vehicle forces him onto the sidewalk. The boys walk along, approach the house and go to the door. The third season closing sequence features the new house and is used for both the fourth and fifth seasons.
Casting
Like the previous two seasons, all four main players appear in every episode.
Richard Correll joins the show and remains for the duration as Beaver's classmate and friend, Richard Rickover. Karen Sue Trent joins the cast as Penny Woods. Penny would replace Judy Hensler as Beaver's classroom nemesis in the following season when Jeri Weil leaves the show.
Actors Lucas "Tiger" Fafara II (Tooey Brown), Buddy Hart (Chester Anderson), and Bobby Mittelstaedt (Charles Fredericks) leave the show. Ken Osmond as Eddie Haskell and Frank Bank as Lumpy Rutherford become Wally's best friends and constant companions for the remainder of the series.
Direction and writing
Norman Tokar directs the majority of episodes. Hugh Beaumont directs his first episode, "Wally and Alma" and would ultimately direct twenty-three episodes for the show. Several directors new to the series (including Norman Abbott) participate.
Leave It to Beaver universe
When the second season closes, the Cleavers have sold their house on Mapleton Drive. In the first episode of the third season, the Cleavers are settled in a new house at 211 Pine Street. No episode features the actual move. The family remains in the Pine Street house for the remainder of the series; the boys attend the same schools and visit the same friends. Beaver enters the fourth grade, and Wally the tenth.
The Pine Street house has a layout similar to the Mapleton Drive house: front entry, living room with fireplace, dining room, picnic patio, kitchen, garage, and three or four bedrooms on the upper level. In the Pine Street house, however, Ward has a panelled, bookcase-lined den (the location of many scenes in which Ward disciplines the boys), and June has a laundry room off the kitchen (where Beaver creates chaos in a future episode). Like the Mapleton Drive house, the boys' bedroom has an en-suite bathroom. Unlike the previous two seasons, the Pine Street garage is used infrequently as a setting for the masculine confabs of Beaver and his friends or for father and son get-togethers.
The adult theme of alcoholism is tackled in "Beaver and Andy".
Season 3 was released on DVD on June 15, 2010.