Poetic license

[Kitt]

The episode where Beaver and Larry go to the carnival with the money Larry tossed out the window has an unlikely scene that I'll chalk up to poetic license. Larry dials Beavers number and Beaver answers right away. Beaver rarely answers the phone in scenes at home. In that conversation Larry tells Beaver to come over right away. Usually Beaver would okay that with his folks and then tell Larry one way or the other. In that conversation Beaver is supposed to have said okay in no time flat and headed on over. It's not a big deal but it's just one of those quicky plot gaffs that move the show along. Anyone notice that or other not quite realistic scenes similar to it?

[Mijada]

I've noticed thing like that too. The kids will go off places by them selves, the courthouse, the barbershop etc. It seemed like anywhere they needed to go was always within walking distance and they didn't live right in the city. By the looks of the house they lived in the suburbs. When I was growing up we rarely went off alone, our parents would always have to drive us.

[Kitt]

Actually I can understand the walking to places in the Beaver's Era. I grew up in the sixties so the 'suburbs were small. Most everything was just blocks or at most a couple of miles away so we walked almost everywhere--including to school.

But you're comment about being driven does remind me of an episode from the other day. Beaver got a letter about the school bus starting to come to his neighborhood. June and Ward read the letter together. June said how nice it would be to have the bus picking up Beaver from now on. Ward said something like, 'Oh I don't know, walking to school is one of the last joys of childhood left these days'. Then later, Beaver got in trouble and was suspended from riding the bus for a week. Ward said well he'll just have to walk to school. June said to Ward that it's too far and that he would have to drive him to school. I was under the impression that Beaver had always walked to school before the bus service started up. Wasn't everyone?

[Mijada]

Originally posted by Kitt
Actually I can understand the walking to places in the Beaver's Era. I grew up in the sixties so the 'suburbs were small. Most everything was just blocks or at most a couple of miles away so we walked almost everywhere--including to school.

I can see your point. I guess what I was trying to point out about the boys walking everywhere was not only everything being so close but also how the boys seemed to have so much freedom. Like in the ep where they want to join the Boy Scouts, They were very young. Wally was about 12 and Beaver 7 or 8 and they went down to register all by themselves. Most kids would be accompanied by their parents. When Beaver found out he was too young to join he walked home all by himself and it was way after dark. But like you said the scenes were probably done that way to help move the show along.
As far as school goes I always assumed it was fairly close too but in the Beaver the Bunny ep, Lumpys car breaks down and wally tells Beaver to walk up to Grant Ave and catch a bus giving the impression that school was far away.

[tdr]

All this is true. From the first season the boys walked to school alone, as well as 'downtown' to the movies or stores, except where it fit the plot that they needed someone to drive them; like when Ward went to pick them up at the theater and there was all the confusion. And Ward, and even June, are not normally concerned that the boys, especially Beaver, do so much walking in public, until an ep like "Beaver Runs Away" and June freaks out that Beaver must be "out there cold and hungry and in danger."

As for the school bus ep, how was Beaver getting to school before Miss Landers announced the 'extension of the bus service'? If Ward was driving him, then Ward should not have been surprised when June said he would have to drive him for the week he (Beaver) was suspended. If Beaver had already been walking to school, it should not have suddenly become "too far."

Unlike Beaver's bus privileges, poetic license is never suspended.