Leave it to Beaver is an American sitcom about an inquisitive and often naïve boy, Theodore “The Beaver” Cleaver (Jerry Mathers), and his adventures. The cast includes Beaver’s brother Wally (Tony Dow) and their parents June (Barbara Billingsley) and Ward (Hugh Beaumont) Cleaver. The Cleavers exemplify the idealized suburban family of the mid-20th century.

Leave It to Beaver was one of the first primetime sitcom series written from a child’s point of view. Like several television dramas and sitcoms of the late 1950s and early 1960s), Leave It to Beaver is a glimpse of middle-class American boyhood. In a typical episode, Beaver gets into some sort of boyish scrape, then faces his parents for reprimand and correction. Neither parent was omniscient or infallible; the series often showed the parents discussing their approach to child-rearing.