Leave It to Beaver
The Perfect Father
TV Flash files “The Perfect Father” as hour 22 of 234 in the TV Flash guide — Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963) on CBS/ABC, season 1, episode 22, aired 1958-03-14, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E22: listed hour 22 of 234 in the Leave It to Beaver guide, hour 22 of 39 in season 1. It aired 1958-03-14 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “Cleaning Up Beaver” (S01E21). Next is “Beaver and Poncho” (S01E23).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Ward becomes a bit jealous when Wally and Beaver begin spending time playing basketball at Willie Dennison's house after Willie's dad put up a backboard and a basket. This prompts Ward to do the same thing but it just seems like things are working against him being the perfect father.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Perfect Father sit in the Leave It to Beaver guide?
S01E22 is listed hour 22 of 234 — hour 22 of 39 in season 1, season 1 episode 22.
When did Leave It to Beaver S01E22 air?
The Perfect Father aired 1958-03-14 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Where should I start?
Start with the 1957 spelling opener, then Captain Jack. Those two teach kid logic versus adult panic — the show’s real camera height.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Child-height sitcom before the wrecking ball: small crimes, large speeches, kids aging in public while the myth pretends they don’t. Watch Mayfield as a broadcast contract — then decide whether later satire was answering the blocking or just the pearls.
October 1957: a boy gets spelled, a father prepares a speech, and CBS (then ABC) sells America a suburb that never had to survive a zoning meeting. Leave It to Beaver is not a documentary of the 1950s. It is a contract. The camera sits at child height. Trouble is a fib, a borrowed boat, a crush, a haircut that will not behave. Ward Cleaver talks like a man who has read the network’s idea of a civic handbook. June is costumed as calm. Wally is the rehearsal for adulthood. Beaver is the nation’s stand-in for the…
Filed against
- Jerry Mathers as Theodore 'Beaver' Cleaver
Jerry Mathers was Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver on Leave It to Beaver, the suburban innocence brand later generations loved to rewrite. Child-star perfection met real growing pains the tabloids never forgot. The camera sat at child height; he…
- Tony Dow as Wally Cleaver
Tony Dow’s Wally Cleaver is Leave It to Beaver as a broadcast contract — six seasons of child-height sitcom, Ward’s speeches, June’s pearls, kids aging in public while the myth pretends they don’t. On TV Flash he is the older brother the…
- Barbara Billingsley as June Cleaver
Barbara Billingsley’s June Cleaver became Leave It to Beaver’s pearl-necklace emblem of suburban innocence — later the punchline every “not like that anymore” think piece steals. She sold calm as a national brand. TV Flash files her under…
- Hugh Beaumont as Ward Cleaver
Hugh Beaumont’s Ward Cleaver is Leave It to Beaver’s polished father — speeches at child height, a suburb sold as destiny, counsel as the three-act button. The sitcom family myth later decades spent decades rewriting starts in that living…