I was relaxing on the couch on Saturday evening when I noticed Leave it to Beaver was on TV Land - only something was a different. Beaver was REALLY small and Wally wasn’t Wally (Tony Dow) and Dad wasn’t Dad (Hugh Beaumont).
It was the pilot for the show (1957, IIRC). The actor that played Wally wasn’t very good - I can see why he got changed. Dad smoked (can’t imagine Hugh Beaumont doing that) and was someone I had seen in a Twilight Zone episode.
The big surprise came early in the show when one of the other boys in town came on the screen and tricked Wally and Beaver into stealing bottle caps. He looked really familiar and it took me a while to figure it out. The credits at the end cofirmed it thought - Harry Shearer was in the pilot for Leave it to Beaver.
The poor guy who played Wally, though. I can imagine his later life while working at the gas station.
“So, I hear you were a child actor.”
“Yep. I played Wally on Leave it to Beaver.”
“No way, man. Tony Dow played Wally on Leave it to Beaver.”
“Well, I played him first.”
“Yeah - whatever. Give me $10 of regular and don’t forget to wash the windshield with a clean rag this time.”
IMDb page. The cast list says Beaumont played Ward, but a User says he was played by Casey Adams. I didn’t see a LITB credit for any of the Casey Adamses, nor any TZ credits. Casey Adams (V) is credited as having played a doctor on one episode of Dobie Gillis, which would make him the right age. Paul Sullivan played Wally. LITB is his first credit. The Five Pennies (1959) is his second and last.
Hugh Beaumont was most definitely NOT in the pilot. I’ll have to think some more on where I saw the actor who played Ward. Harry Shearer was very recognizable once you realized who it was.
FWIW, this page has photos from the Leave it to Beaver pilot of Paul Sullivan as Wally Cleaver, Casey Adams as Ward Cleaver and Harry Shearer as Frankie, an Eddie Haskell type character.
