Beaver's Prize

In this classic episode, Beaver has been grounded in his home for the weekend as punishment for tampering with his father's things. However, on the coaxing of Larry he goes out to the movies and - as luck would have it - wins a brand new bicycle in a raffle. How will he explain this situation to his parents, who think he was home the whole time?

Jerry Mathers is on record comparing LITB to a "medieval morality play" and the character Larry Mondello to Beaver's "Tempter." These are apt comparisons; just look at the way Larry is never without his shiny apple! LITB also excelled at depicting the causality of evil. Very often it's a brief decisive moment in time, a simple word or gesture or bit of carelessness on Beaver's part, which starts a domino effect leading to his getting in trouble. Here we have the added irony of Beaver's winning a bike in a raffle - an event which normally would be an occasion for celebration but here is cause for dismay!

In the closing scene, the story opens out into deeper territory as Larry wonders whether God was punishing Beaver by making him win the bicycle. There is also a subtle differentiation between Beaver's character and Larry's: Beaver declares he would never do to Larry what Larry did to him.

In sum, one of the more memorable moral tales from the series and one which shows Beaver's staunch character and innate sense of right and wrong.

Beaver is grounded on a Saturday because he got into his father's desk when he knew he was not supposed to and caused some ink to spill. His parents then go on an outing, leaving Beaver in the clutches of Larry Mondello who tempts Beaver into going to the movies with him by enumerating the various attractions showing that day. What Beaver is not expecting is to win an expensive bike in a raffle that the movie theater is having that day, and now he has irrefutable evidence of his crime.

There was an easy solution to the problem - Larry could have claimed he won the bike when he went to the movies and left Beaver out of it entirely. Or, even more to the root of the problem, Larry could have not insisted that the reluctant Beaver claim his prize. Instead, Larry does take the bike home with him, but makes up a ridiculous story about a millionaire driving around giving free bikes to kids. Dean Wormer of Animal House had a few words to say about kids like Larry, but it will be a few more years before Larry gets to the drunk part.

There was a previous episode where Larry and Beaver skip school and end up on a local live TV broadcast with Wally and June watching at home. This seems to be a rework of that episode. I guess you can't have an original episode each and every week when you do 40 episodes of TV a year.

Where have we seen this before? Beaver is supposed to do something, "Larry Mondello" (‰usty Stevens) comes around and gets him to do the opposite of what's right, Beaver gets in a jam because of it and then lies to his parents and then is caught.

Yup, this is not an unusual story on Leave It To Beaver....but it always ends on a feel-good note.

Along the way, Beaver - who wins a bicycle he really doesn't even want to win - has to figure out what to do in this weird situation.....all because he listened to Larry and left the house to the go to the movies when he was grounded. Oh, well, at least Larry gets it, too, from his folks. I can't recall ever seeing Mr. Mondello but we always see Madge Blake playing Larry's mom, and she's perfect for the role.

Beaver gets coaxed by Larry Mondello yet again and ends up with an "English racing bike" as proof of his disobedience, and no plausible explanation. We hear yet another tale of the unseen Angela Valentine, and Larry offers up a rather sober explanation of God's actions in reality and the movies. Mrs. Mondello is relieved that at least this time Larry did something wrong when Mr. Mondello happened to be in town.

Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher obviously re-worked this story from a few episodes back, the one where Beave and Larry skip school and get caught on tv. Remember?

In this case, Beave is supposed to be home (punished for doing all the wrong things!), he skips out with Larry (of course) goes to the movies --and WINS a bike!

Murphy's Law re-visited. If Beave was not being disciplined, and went to the movies that same day --he would have won NOTHING. Life is cruel.

Then again, you have to stick to the rules and tell the truth. No matter what, Beave is priceless and doing what all of us kids would have probably done anyway, except we wouldn't have won a gosh darn thing.

Look for popular character actor Peter Leeds as the theater manager, everywhere on tv for years.

And especially not to miss a later episode (perhaps inspired by this one) where Beave wins a sports car. Stay tuned!

Best of SEASON 3 EPISODE 4 remastered dvd box set. Catch the classic color cover. A must see.