Feeling ignored after Wally doesn't invite him to a party, Beaver is convinced by his sneaky pal, Gilbert Bates, to get even by sabotaging his big brother's evening.Feeling ignored after Wally doesn't invite him to a party, Beaver is convinced by his sneaky pal, Gilbert Bates, to get even by sabotaging his big brother's evening.Feeling ignored after Wally doesn't invite him to a party, Beaver is convinced by his sneaky pal, Gilbert Bates, to get even by sabotaging his big brother's evening.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis is one of the few times in the series that June and Ward are seen in their bedroom, replete with the double beds that were in keeping with how married couples' sleeping arrangements were portrayed in movies and on television before the motion picture production code that governed such screen portrayals was abandoned in the late 1960s.
- GoofsOne of Beaver's pranks to sabotage Wally's party was to put a current-interrupter in the plug of the record player, so that the music would stop, then restart, every few seconds while everyone was dancing. Logically, every time the player re-started, the record would have to re-start, gradually spinning up to speed before the music would sound "normal". In the show, however, the music simply re-started at regular pitch and rhythm, as if it were playing continuously while the sound on a separate amplifier was cutting in and out. Record players didn't work that way in those days.
- Quotes
Clarence Rutherford: [Lumpy bites into a piece of prank candy with soap in the middle] Where'd you make this stuff? In a chemistry lab?
Featured review
Beaver the Trickster
This elegantly made episode is a surprising high point of LITB's final season. Wally is organizing a party at home for himself and his friends, and June and Ward are lending their hand in the preparations. Amidst all the hubbub, Beaver feels ignored and neglected; to make matters worse, Wally acts like a haughty jerk and tells Beaver flat-out he's not invited to the party. (Believe me, Wally is downright unlikeable in this episode!) Gilbert Bates - that snake in the grass who always gets Beaver in trouble - convinces Beaver to sabotage Wally's party by planting tricks from a novelty store all around the house - rubber cheese, fake spiders, the works. But Wally, on the encouragement of Ward and June, makes an eleven-o'clock decision to invite Beaver to the party after all. You can imagine the spot Beaver is in now!
The writing here is top-notch, with an imaginative reconciliation scene for Beaver and Wally and a funny surprise coda. Season 6 had a new cinematographer, Jack MacKenzie, and his style is noticeably different: more chiaroscuro lighting, and more extensive use of closeups and tracking shots. The episode looks stunning.
An even bigger surprise is that we get to see the inside of Ward and June's bedroom - a sacred precinct that was scrupulously avoided throughout most of the show's run. The couple sits there watching television as the youngsters dance the Twist downstairs, and the camera cuts between them and the youngsters. Perhaps with the series heading towards the end and the Cleaver boys growing more mature, the writers felt they could afford to be a bit more daring. Yet the decorous conventions of the era were still in force: twin marital beds, and June shown lounging on the bed with one foot on the floor.
The writing here is top-notch, with an imaginative reconciliation scene for Beaver and Wally and a funny surprise coda. Season 6 had a new cinematographer, Jack MacKenzie, and his style is noticeably different: more chiaroscuro lighting, and more extensive use of closeups and tracking shots. The episode looks stunning.
An even bigger surprise is that we get to see the inside of Ward and June's bedroom - a sacred precinct that was scrupulously avoided throughout most of the show's run. The couple sits there watching television as the youngsters dance the Twist downstairs, and the camera cuts between them and the youngsters. Perhaps with the series heading towards the end and the Cleaver boys growing more mature, the writers felt they could afford to be a bit more daring. Yet the decorous conventions of the era were still in force: twin marital beds, and June shown lounging on the bed with one foot on the floor.
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- MichaelMartinDeSapio
- Apr 19, 2016
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- Runtime30 minutes
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- 1.33 : 1
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