![](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/c\/c8\/Cleaver_family_Leave_it_to_Beaver_1960.JPG\/220px-Cleaver_family_Leave_it_to_Beaver_1960.JPG\")
<\/a>The Leave it to Beaver family<\/p><\/div>It depicted the everyday life of the Cleavers, an ideal suburban family from the 1950\u2019s. The sitcom\u2019s clean humor and likable cast gave it the popularity to continue on for 6 seasons. There were a total of 234 episodes and the last episode aired on June 20, 1963. Leave It to Beaver<\/em> received two Emmy nominations in 1958 for Best New Program Series of the Year and Best Teleplay Writing. Although it aired on October 4, 1957 on CBS, the show changed networks in the next season to ABC and stayed there until the end. Each episode was 30 minutes long and shot in black and white. The typical episode will track the everyday activities of the Cleaver family.<\/p>\nThe show was written from the point of view of Beaver, the youngest son in the family. Beaver is portrayed by Jerry Mathers. The other stars of the show included Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont as Beaver’s parents, June and Ward Cleaver, and Tony Dow as Beaver\u2019s older brother Wally. A typical episode would show Beaver or Wally getting involved in some kind of adventure that eventually finds them in trouble. Later, June and Ward would teach the children that bad behavior has consequences. Most Leave It to Beaver<\/em> episodes follow this pattern. The overall content of the show is used to explain how a wrongdoing results in parents teaching their children a lesson with a moral or punishment. This kind of moral guidance was a recurring theme in many shows and often Leave It to Beaver<\/em> is compared to other wholesome family shows including, Ozzie and Harriet. (Dunar, 236) The theme displays many ideal middle-class values of the 1950\u2019s. <\/p>\nThe show encourages many of the stereotypical gender roles, family structure, and clothing attire of the time. The Cleavers are a typical nuclear family that consisted of two married parents living together with their two children. The parents are depicted as being a happily married couple with no problems. They are both college-graduates living a very comfortably life with Ward working in an office and June as a happy homemaker. Any time another kind of family is mentioned whether it be a single mom or divorced parents, Leave It to Beaver describes them in a negative light. The show also encourages the stereotypical gender roles of the time. For example, one episode has Ward describing how women should stay inside where the modern day conveniences make it easier to cook in the kitchen rather than outside where a man should be. For example: <\/p>\n